Another Week Begins

Today Jerry is resting very peacefully. His past few days have been pretty hard on him in that he didn't sleep much; was very restless and antsy. The nurses have sedated him a bit more today in order to keep him from thrashing around and also to keep his anxiety at bay. As he awakens/becomes alert, he still tries to wrench the tube from his throat..something we definitely do not want.

We are under "quiet" orders today from Nurse Shannon. So, while there will be someone with him all day, we won't be chatting with him as much instead, simply holding his hand and being there for him. Her goal is to let him rest today as she feels the last 24 hours or so have been very stimulating and hard on him with family in/out, chatting with him and of course, the regular check up of "Jerry, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand, or raise your eyebrows" was somewhat draining on him.

His blood pressure and heart rate are within nominal ranges today. They have turned the pressure support on the ventilator back up due to the fatigue they feel he has been thru the last few days. Also, they have put him back on one of the blood pressure meds. This isn't too surprising as when they sedate him/he's asleep, his bp drops.. so they are doing this to simply regulate him - nothing to be alarmed about.

His swelling has gone down considerably.. and they are now pulling about 60-75 ml/hour from him (the level changes depending on his BP levels). The kidney doctor thinks his swelling hasn't gone down, as he isn't pulling the amount of fluid from him that he would like.. but again, nothing alarming. He can't pull the amount he wants until his blood pressure stabilizes.

We are constantly in a tug of war between the blood pressure and kidneys -and every now and then something else decides to jump in and gives us a good tug.... but we are flighting steadfastly and will win out in the end.