Tuesday, October 11th - Day 114 Update

Hello there,

First let me thank Guy tonight for staying with Tori at her new HSH (Health South Hospital) location while Maria, Whitney, Brendan and I met many of the wonderful and supporting people at the spaghetti dinner for Tori tonight. The turnout was incredible with over 600 people attending and it was also inspiring to witness!! Thank you all so much!! I will be posting some pictures of the event shortly and if anyone else who attended would like to share their own experience at the event please do so.

Now on to Tori who was moved to the HSH in Sandy, Utah in the afternoon today. We told the HSH medical staff that today was not a great day for us to move her due to the dinner plans and activities but she had to be moved today... We left the UVRMC ICU at 2:00pm today by the time we finally settled Tori in and met with her doctor and nurses it was about 5:05pm when we headed out the door to travel back to Orem. Tori's trip to the HSH hospital went fine after Maria made the driver and the currently sick EMT in the back switch positions... Tori also adapted well to her surroundings that were not really new to her. In fact, she is in the exact same room as her last visit to the HSH.

When we arrived we saw many familiar faces welcoming us back!! It was nice and each one of the medical staff already familiar with Tori were amazed at how much she has progressed since last being here. Tori would turn her head and focus her eyes on each of them. Her skin tone and color also appeared much better to them and they noticed she was also heavier which is great!! :-) In fact, they weighed Tori again and she was at 99lbs. We would still like to see another 10lbs on her!!

I met with Dr. VickRoy prior to leaving and we went over ALL of Tori's medications and plans for her as well. Since we want to remove the button trach as fast as possible, Tori will be getting a swallowing study tomorrow to make sure everything she swallows is heading down the right paths. We will also plug her trach and watch her response. She still has some phlegm build up in her lungs but it is saliva like in color and texture and she coughs it out easily. Her breathing vitals remain solid though so she shouldn't have any problems tolerating being plugged. We also want to be aggressive in getting some more weight on Tori prior to trying to stomach feed her through the G-Tube. She is still set to down drain from her stomach but there isn't hardly anything coming out of it which is definitely a great sign.

Due to Tori's positive MRSA bacteria, she is under quarantine so yellow suits, masks and gloves must be worn while inside her room... They took another phlegm culture as soon as we arrived and we are hoping it will have no growth and turn out negative quickly. Wearing that gear just isn't much fun...

Tomorrow the PT, OT and ST personnel will re-engage Tori into her daily 3 hours of therapy. She was also trying to sit up quite a bit today. Prior to leaving the UVMRC the PT therapists had Tori sitting up in her bed and she did great!! She wasn't shaking or anything like that and was truly trying to balance herself. She was soooo close before and hopefully we will make up that lost ground quickly on this front.

Alright, I'm staying at the HSH with Tori tonight and Guy left a little while ago after getting our dial up connection and wireless network up and running once again.

Thanks again everyone and good night!!

-Tim, Maria, Tori, Whitney and Brendan

Earlier this evening from Guy:
Hello everyone,

I wanted to take this opportunity to let everyone know that Tori Schmanski was relocated to Healthsouth today. Right now she is doing great. She seems relaxed all things considered.

Tim will provide you a complete update today has he comes back from the Spaghetti dinner.

Thanks,
-Guy

PS: you can now search Tori's site using Google search. You will find the new search on the left panel of every page.