December 1, 2005 - Mid-Morning

Lots to share on this one, so sit back. Mandy had another CAT scan this morning to evaluate her "readiness for transport". Her neurosurgeon hasn't looked at it yet, but we anticipate him releasing her for transport as early as tomorrow. The first thing that means is that they will release her from the step-down unit and into her own room. The second thing that means is that we will be able to bring her back home to Dallas as soon as 1) we've selected a hospital and 2) they have a bed ready for her. Kurt thinks he might have narrowed it down to 2 good choices and is in the process of doing the paperwork, getting the neurosurgeons/neurologists in touch with each other and generally crossing i's, dotting t's. Should all things go well, we believe that she may be coming back next week. We did find out that Kurt should be able to accompany her in the plane, which shoudl be great for both of them. We'll keep everyone posted on the travel schedule etc as it develops.

Her trach has now been capped for over 12 hours and she's been breathing through her mouth and nose with very little oxygen assistance (yahoo - no more raw nose!). She tried doing some talking last night in the evening visit, but Kurt wasn't able to make out what she was trying to say so we haven't heard anything beyond her initial first words late yesterday afternoon. (Her voice is barely a whisper at this point). Her trauma doc did get her to respond to some basic commands this morning (wiggle your left foot, squeeze my hands) but not others (give me the thumbs up sign). She seems to be responding only to the things which interest her at any given moment (no one who knows the princess well can be at all suprised by that). She didn't feel like talking at all this morning, but she was "awake" and watching Kurt walk aroudn the room a bit when she wasn't watching t.v. (we've been keeping the channel tuned to the Food network and the Animal channel as they seem to be her favorites). We're trying to avoid overstimulating her as we've been warned by the PT that overstimulation can cause her to shut down entirely and tune us out. So we're trying to keep our requests for interaction minimized to the periods when she seems to feel up to it. As we've been told many, many times, brain injuries often move at 2 steps forward, 1 step back. As long as her net progression is forward, we'll take it at whatever pace she can manage.