Leaving the PICU...just kidding!

Tim:

Yesterday was looking like a pretty good day for Michael.  Most of his vitals were pretty stable with all the medications he's on, his heart rate was still pretty high but the neurosurgeons weren't too concerned, his brain seemed to be circulating cerebrospinal fluid better, he seemed comfortable--the doctors and nurses kept telling us today would be the day Michael would finally leave intensive care and go to a normal room to finish his recovery from surgery.  Then today they changed their minds.  Heart rate still too high, cerebrospinal fluid leaking again from his incision, he still requires more work than they can handle in a regular recovery room.  So they moved his EVD (his "brain drain") back to 5cm (which is where it was a week ago, it needs to be at 20cm to be removed) and we get to stay in the PICU a little bit longer.

It's not that big a deal to us whether we're in the PICU on the 3rd floor or the quieter, more private neuro surgery recovery area on the 6th floor. The biggest change for us will be when he finally gets to come home from the hospital.  We still have no idea when that will be, but we're expecting at least another week or two.  Much of that will depend on when he's ready to have the drain removed from his brain.

Today Bishop Foster came to visit us at the hospital on his way home from a business trip.  He caught up with us in the cafeteria eating a late lunch.  It's amazing how sporadic our mealtimes are at the hospital, especially when we don't have our other 3 "chicks" around chirping "Feed me! Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!"  It was so great visiting with him, and he offered some interesting perspectives, being an eye surgeon himself.

Liz's great-aunt Zella passed away on Friday night.  Liz was pretty close to her and had always planned to attend her funeral.  She's a bit sad she won't have the chance to do so now.  Her mom will fly back to Utah for the funeral this weekend and is planning to fly back here afterwards to help out for another week or so.