Wednesday, October 5th - Day 108 Update

Hello,

Tori slept well Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. At 11:00am or so the respiratory technician and ICU lead doctor removed her standard trach and replaced it with the original button trach Tori had in previously. Tori responded very well and has maintained her breathing and blood oxygenation vitals all day. She is breathing humidified room air through a mask over her button trach opening just as before. Tomorrow we will plug the trach and see how well Tori responds. Our goal is to try and get the button trach removed as soon as possible so we don't have it as a source of infection... We will also need to do swallowing tests with barium laced liquid or yogurt to make sure content in her mouth will go where it is supposed to. Tori also demonstrated just how strong her cough is for the medical staff. Once the button trach was in she shot coughed up phlegm across the room!! The medical staff were definitely impressed :-) With Tori's great cough, a demonstrated gag reflex and her swallowing we should be set well to remove the button trach soon.

Tori's bilious output from her stomach has greatly diminished from the massive outputs prior. This is another great sign and it is just tempting us to try and place feeds into her stomach but we need to wait for that extra 10lbs of weight Tori needs!! It would be sooooo nice to have her digestive system working properly again. We will continue to monitor her stomach output very closely.

Tori's PT therapist brought in some new hand splints for her today but we haven't tried them yet. Andy also brought in a nice picture of the University of Utah Dance Team complete with a message to Tori offering their prayers and best wishes. It was also autographed by the entire team. Andy told me he cared for one of the dancers in the picture who also had a TBI.

Guy and Sophie are both back from europe and visited Tori this afternoon. It is so good for all of us to have them back!! :-)

Thanks again everyone!!

-Tim