September 20 Happy Birthday Kirk

Today is Kirk's birthday. Sidney and I will store away our birthdays wishes for him and we will celebrate when he is able.

He is doing well this morning. He had a bump at about 4 am when he was cleaned up and put more on his side. I think that mostly has to do with his lungs and infection. But because of that, everything went high for a little while, ICP, heart rate and blood pressure. I think he was also mad.

Today's goal is to clamp the ICP and leave it that way, even if it approaches 20. The doctor really wants to get that out tomorrow. We will likely also take him off the EEG tomorrow as well. The other goal is to get to minimum sedation and as much on oral meds as possible. These are longer acting but also provide less sedation so we can really see what he can start to do.

We did have him breath on his own for several minutes and he took nice strong and regular breaths. But those muscles are weak also so we will allow him to breathe when he wants but keep the ventilator doing most of the work.

The doctor also ordered that he gets 6 hours of minimally disturbed sleep at night. He needs that solid rest. We can mess with at other times.

We will have another friend from Houston here this weekend. It will be good to see her and have another adult in the house for a couple of days. And she has an SUV which I hope she is counting on using.

I may not put up another post today if he stays good and stable. If something changes, good or bad, I will get another post up.

Thank you again for your continued support for us as we make this difficult journey.