Today is 206 days in the hospital for Chris. I would love to say there’s an end in sight but that’s just not the case. He has made small improvements, but there is still a long ways to go. He is really sticking with his “baby steps” philosophy. He always said baby steps when it came to any project or challenge. Even baby steps are steps in the right direction.
One of the latest improvements is his lungs. While he still producing a moderate amount of mucus; his chest x-rays show his lungs are almost clear. He’s also able to tolerate doing c-pap during the day and the vent at night (when needed). Hopefully soon he will be able to move to the t-piece during the day.
Another small improvement was discovered this morning with a CT of his head. Since he walked into the board his brain has had a right to left midline shift. The CT shows that the shift has decreased. His brain is still shifted but not as bad as it has been. The hematoma on the right is not as big as it was and there’s no signs of any new hemorrhages.
He’s still pretty out of it most of the time. He still sleeps a lot. When he is awake he doesn’t interact much. Sometimes he will follow small commands. Once in awhile he will move his mouth like he’s trying to talk but I cannot read lips very well. I catch a word or two here and there.
His kidneys still haven’t started working yet. They have done so much dialysis that his urine output has become very minimal. For awhile he was getting around 700ml daily. Now he’s doing good to get 100ml a day. They are doing what they call a dialysis holiday. Basically he gets a break from dialysis for awhile. They thought his dialysis line might be getting infected again so they pulled it. This is the reason for the dialysis holiday; not the lack of urine output.
He is also still having occasional drops in his blood pressure. It seems to happen more at night. They don’t have an explanation for this. Luckily, so far, the medicines are able to get it back up fairly quickly. If they don’t work he will be moved back to the ICU.
He still has a long fight before he’s well enough to get out of here. He needs all the good vibes, thoughts and prayers he can get!