November 15, 2005 - Mid-Morning

Things continue to look up. Mandy's neurosurgeon decided to forgo the CAT scan yesterday (because her numbers were so good). He removed the bolt and took our girl off of all her medications. No more alien antennae! He's left a standing order for some morphine just in case she needs it, but she seems to be doing really well without any painkillers right now. That leaves her with the ventilator, the IV to keep her hydrated and her feeding tube since she's not awake enough yet to eat or drink.

To leave ICU and move to the step down unit, she's going to need to be able to breathe by herself without the ventilator for a full 24 hours so we expect them to begin capping the ventilator and having her breathe independently for a few hours at a time until she's worked her way up to the full 24 hours. We're not sure how long it will take to wean her off the ventilator. It could be a few weeks. Once she's in the step-down unit, we'll be able to look at timing on moving her to a rehabilitative facility in Dallas. That's probably still weeks away. (The people in Savannah have been a team of angels propping us all up, but there's nothing like home is there?)