Movin' On Up!

Hey everyone! Got some exciting news from Mom today.

As we've been telling you, the hospital staff is working to wean Dad from his breathing machine. This process has been complicated by Dad's GI issues that resulted in some very uncomfortable bloating. Well, the dam finally broke today in that area of concern (sorry to be so graphic) and things started to happen.

First, Dad asked Mom to flatten-out a sheet that was under him, as the wrinkles feel like boulders under his back. This process usual entails Mom slowly taking her hand and going underneath Dad's back to smooth the sheets out. As he couldn't turn himself over, and she's not strong to do so by herself, this was usually a tedious and painful task for the both of them. Well today, Dad surprised Mom by lifting up his chest a little to help get Mom's hand underneath him. But this isn't the big news for the day! THE BIG NEWS is about Dad's breathing.

When the therapist was working with Dad today, she kept challenging him to go down to a lower setting. You see, he's on 11 right now, which translates to the machine breathing for him 11 times per minute. He's gone down to 9 before and stayed there for 30 minutes, but it really tired him out. Well today, the therapist took him down to 6 just to see what he would do. The machine started beeping, but in a good way. It showed that Dad was assisting the machine and breathing on his own. While the machine stayed at 6, the number of Dad's breaths counted by the machine was between 12-14 reps per minute. This result means that for every breath that the machine gave Dad, he took a breath on his own to match it. Dad sustain this level for 40 minutes with no side effects.

It's great news, because this could be the start of some big progress. But we've been down this road before and know it's too soon yet to count our chicks. So keep those prayers a comin', cause they are working!!!

Well, that's it for now. We'll update you again as soon as we have anything else.

Team Jerry all the way!!!