Thursday, November 26

Today was mostly quiet.  Billy had another "episode" where his heart rate dropped and his breathing became erratic, but we were told he recovered on his own and did not need any medication.  These episodes are not surprising to anyone providing care and seem to be symptomatic of high spinal cord injuries.  Just to be safe they took chest x-rays (which I think might be a near-daily occurrence anyway) and an EKG.  Those all checked out, which I guess again just points to high spinal cord injury and not any other complication.  He also had another bronchiostomy today and it seems like he has an easier time breathing after this procedure.  They gave him some more sedative so he's been sleeping calmly all afternoon and his vitals look good.

I spoke briefly with one of the trauma doctors today and he told me that it could be at least two years before we know the full extent of permanent damage or recovery possible.  Two years seems like a long time, but I am glad to have some sort of time frame to think about.  And two years is a long time- a lot of healing can take place in two years.  In any case, we've started thinking about rehabilitation facilities and have a lot of research to do.

Finally, for those of you who are wondering, we did have a turkey dinner today.  There is a facility adjacent to the hospital called the Family House with affordable (long-term) housing available to the families of patients here.  There are also kitchen and laundry and other useful amenities here.  Anyway, the Family House provided a Thanksgiving dinner today so we got our annual dose of tryptophan and have been dozing off in the waiting room all afternoon.