Monday, August 29th - Day 71 Update

Good evening,

Tori ended up sleeping very well for Sophie and Maria on Sunday night. The Valium dosage was the same as the previous night and Tori had one at 11:00pm and about 4:30am in the morning. She then slept in until 7:30am or so.

The physical therapist came in first thing this morning and ran Tori through her stretching routine and immediately afterward Dr. Vickroy and respiratory technician Tony were there to remove her trach and insert the olympic trach button. The trach button is essentially a small plastic pipe that has a removable plug. You can remove the plug and she breathes just as she did before when the trach was in. Keeping the plug in causes all of her breathing to go normally through her throat and mouth. The procedure went smoothly although Tori coughed during it and got Dr. Vickroy with some serious Phlegm. She now has the nickname 'Volcano' and everyone is cautious around her when she is about to cough :-)

Various sounds came through Tori's mouth after the trach button was placed. Most of them were gurgles or a little humming. When she is agitated more noise is present as well. She went all day without her bite guard and is continuing to explore her mouth with her tongue. Hopefully she will tie it all together soon and really start making some sounds!!

Tori had more taste tests with the speech therapist today including a cherry sucker which Tori enjoyed much more than the orange one a few days ago. She also had some Diet Coke today!! No, I didn't give it to her it really was the speech therapist and Tori even swallowed on command. I'm sure it won't be long before we can use her favorite Starbucks Frappuccino instead!! ;-)

Kourtney finally broke her jinx today as well!! She arrived with her aunt today and spent some awake time with Tori. We even placed her in her wheelchair and Kourtney got to drive her around the HSH for a while. She also mentioned she was beginning her automobile driving classes just before she ran Tori's leg slightly into a wall... Get off the roads everyone!! ;-) Just kidding you there Kourtney!! We love you!!

Amber and her mother also came afterward and Tori just calmly stared at Amber for about 25 minutes or so. I'm not sure if it was Amber's orange shirt or just her but Tori was very drawn to Amber tonight. Thanks for coming up Amber and I want to welcome all other friends of Tori's to please continue to visit. In fact, one of Tori's therapies involves her recognition of family and friends so if any of you come up for a visit please bring a 5X7 photo so we can use it in her therapy.

Guy also came up tonight and we enjoyed an Outback take out dinner right in Tori's room. Tori cooperated very well and actually let us eat in peace and we promised her some steak in the very near future :-) I think I'll close on that tonight and Tori is sound asleep as I'm wrapping up here. Now if she can only keep it up for say 8 hours straight or so...

Thanks everyone!!

-Tim