Monday Morning

So the doctors have explained to us that they are going to try and keep Daniel sedated for the majority of the days until they can get all the tubes out of him. However, once or twice a day they will stop the sedative and see if he wakes up or if he responds. They like to do this in the mornings. This was why Daniel was responsive yesterday morning. My dad was here all night, and at about 7:00 am Daniel came off of the sedation and started to respond really well. My dad asked him to open his eyes and he could! He still can't focus very well, but the fact that he can open them on request is amazing! Dad asked him to squeeze his hands and wiggle his toes, and he was able to do that as well. I got here a little while later and he was still doing great! I was able to talk to him a lot! Again, he can't focus his eyes, but he is turning his head toward whoever is talking to him and he is trying SO hard.

The doctors have also diagnosed with pneumonia, so he's coughing a lot. This is hard with the tube down his throat, and they have to constantly suction out the tubes. The suctioning makes him really really uncomfortable, and this morning he was doing everything that he could to gag the tube out of his throat. The nurses think that is really positive and that maybe they can take the tube out in the next couple of days. Whenever he fights against the tube though, the sedate him again. My mom and sisters got here right after the sedation had gone up, so he was really struggling to stay awake, but they got to see him open his eyes and wiggle his toes too just a little. After a few minutes the nurse said we should leave and let him rest and he couldn't really open his eyes anymore so we said some goodbyes. My mom said "Daniel, I just wanted to let you know, the Steelers won. " His eyes popped open again! So she kept telling him "The poor Cardinals, their losing streak continues. And the Mavericks are really bad, so you're not missing anything there." He opened his eyes a second time on the Mavericks comment. Then we left before the nurse got us in trouble. Ha ha. But we're really excited about the progress!

My dad and sisters are flying home to Dallas today, so we asked the nurse if he could be off the sedation one more time, and she said she'll take him off before they all leave. He can't talk to us with all the tubes down his throat, but we like just talking to him with his eyes open.

Yesterday and today he's been breathing on his own. He is still hooked up to the machine, and they let him breathe on his own for a few hours, and then let him rest and have the machine do it for a few hours. He was doing really really well, but there were a couple incidents of apnea (he stopped breathing completely) but they think that might be a combination of his seizure medications, and he's being taken off of one of those.

Daniel's MRI from late Saturday night show great improvement from the MRI before that. They told us that the first MRI was great, so we weren't expecting improvement, we were just wanting them to say that there was not damage from oxygen deprivation, but they said that his brain had been swollen in the first test, and in the second one the swelling was significantly reduced.

The respiratory therapist said last night that he is astounded at Danie's progress!

We know that the fasting and prayers and love of everyone who cares about Daniel are REALLY helping. Look at how well he's doing! Our family is so thankful for all of the support. Please keep it up, he's not out of the woods yet.