Wednesday, July 13th - Day 24 final update

WOW!!!!

What a complete and exciting day for Tori!! Tori continued to deliver ALL DAY after my very positive mid-day update today. She was all so vibrant and lively and she offered up smiles to everyone visiting her including various doctors and nurses who stopped by throughout the day!! She seemed especially happy to see Whitney again and the feeling was very mutual between the two. Tori's activity today was very encouraging to us all to say the least and I hope she can just keep it up!!

KEEP FIGHTING TORI!!

Tori was thoroughly exhausted when Maria and I finally left the hospital at 9:15pm tonight. Again, she NEVER slept today so I'm positive she will sleep soundly tonight. Tori gave us three great big yawns just as we left her room. She offered us one last entertaining moment just prior to us leaving. One of the nurses had just finished braiding her hair and she remarked that it would be easier to manage if Tori had a haircut. I then stated "Maybe we should just give her spiked crew cut like her brother Brendan?!?" and Tori responded with a huge smile. But the smile then turned quickly into one of Tori's anguished looks and we were left wondering if she thought the comment was serious!! We quickly calmed her down by repeatedly saying "We're just kidding Tor!! We promise we would never do that to you!!" :-)

Tori also went a full six hours without the respirator today and she performed wonderfully. Her temperature also remained right around 37 degrees Celsius all day. She continues to provide us with some great coughs and the mucus is now clear just like standard saliva. It is no longer yellow and all of the cultures taken on her have returned negative for any 'bugs'.

We received a little bit of bad news concerning her next landing spot as it appears the Utah Valley Medical Center cannot take her in yet... Tori must be able to respond to basic commands before they can take her and provide adequate therapy. She's not quite there yet unfortunately. So we are now going to seriously consider the Health South Hospital in Sandy which is still 35-40 minutes away. The other option is to find some home health care help and bring her home. The nurses tonight told us that the physical therapists CAN just come to our home and perform their magic. We were originally terrified of the home option when it was initially presented to us a couple of weeks ago but we have obviously learned a lot since then. If we could find just the right help this option may become a reality. Our Discharge Planner will begin investigating for us on this front tomorrow. It looks we will be in the PICU until at least next Tuesday now.

Now that all of Tori's dance friends are back from NYC I am very eager to see how Tori responds when they visit!! I know the girls will be amazed by Tori's progress and she looks absolutely beautiful. Please come on by girls when you can!! :-)

Thanks again everyone!! All of your prayers, love and support is indeed paying off!!

-Tim