Tuesday wrapped up as a great day with huge progress. The nurses and doctors again feel that Kathy is progressing very rapidly back towards good health. They do still affirm that this will be a long road to full recovery.
It turns out that Kathy was actually off the ventilator from 9:30am through 2:00pm. Around 2:00pm she got fatigued and started to have some problems breathing on her own and did go back on the vent for the rest of the evening. The ventilator is set to what the doctors called a "wean" setting. It helps her but she is still doing some of the work on her own.
Her doctors and nurses were impressed with her time off the ventilator, they did not think that she would go that long. Later in the day Kathy's nurse (Mary), who was all smiles today, told me that she wasn't sure that Kathy would do well off the vent, but was pleasantly surprised at her strength. Hearing all of this positive energy was very reassuring. At both my 4:00pm visit and my 9:00pm visit Kathy was sleeping, which is to be expected after today. I have read that fatigue is something that can follow GBS patients for a long time, even after a full recovery. After all the work she did today using her respiratory muscles I can understand the need to sleep.
Kathy's anxiety is still high at times. Part of this seems to be that the vent weaning process includes moving away from the sedatives. The nurses are doing their best to keep her as calm and relaxed as possible to prevent the need to go back to higher sedative levels.
That is it for today, positive thoughts about more good things for tomorrow :)
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