Daily Archives: November 10, 2009

Aaron was off the vent for a total of 30 hours at one shot!  While this is an awesome achievement, it was decided it was probably a little too much, a little too soon.  Aaron was so tired today, he didn’t even make it out of bed.  That’s not like him; I can’t remember the last day he spent in bed.  It had to be when he had pneumonia in Hahnemann Hospital in Phila.  anyway, it was very obvious he was totally zonked from his time off the vent.  He slept like a bear today;  through a visit from Candy, through lunch, through a very funny Beverly Hillbillies rerun (OK, maybe it was only me who thought it was funny), both sessions of physical therapy (which was perfectly OK with the therapists) and so on and so on.  Shortly after he woke up, an old friend, April ,stopped by to visit.  She was only there a short while when a technician came in to the room to give him an ultrasound.  During the preparation, Aaron had some difficulty breathing, so the procedure was delayed while the breathing issue was being “addressed”.  April had to leave the room and waited patiently to return to visit with Aaron.  Unfortunately, the difficulty breathing and the procedure he had was too much for him and he wasn’t up to visiting with April.  

There were nurses and therapists in and out of Aaron’s room all afternoon today.  It was just one of those days.  Finally, later in the day, he started to settle down a little bit and he had another visitor, Haley.  Aaron was able to stay awake and visit a little while, he was also able to eat his meal.   After Haley left, Aaron and I watched Wheel of Fortune (does the excitement ever end?) and not long after that, Jaime came.   I left Aaron in Jaime’s capable hands.

It was a very frustrating day for Aaron.  His was pretty down.  Please pray for him; for his state of mind……please pray that he can keep a positive attitude in this very difficult time.  Thank you so much.

Ever have one of those days that was two completely different days wrapped up into one? That was Aaron’s day on Monday.
When Gina & I arrived around 9:00 A.M. Aaron was in bed and having trouble catching a good breath. This continued through mid afternoon. During that time the staff gave Aaron chest therapy, breathing treatments, and even put him back on the vent for an hour or two to help him get back in the rhythm. As Diane eluded to yesterday Aaron was off of everything yesterday from 9:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M. breathing completely on his own. NO vent, NO treach collar, NO O2. While this was a huge accomplishment it did knock Aaron down for a while and he needed a day of rest to recover…..or so we thought.

The original plan was that I would leave around 3:30 and put a few hours in at work and return at 8:00 to watch the first half of the Steeler’s game with Aaron. Gina would stay with Aaron until he had his evening meal and then head home. When I called Gina at 7:30 to say that I was on my way up for the game she was still there. Aaron had perked up and Gina was enjoying her visit so much that she didn’t want to leave. We ended up staying until the Steeler’s had things well in hand late in the 4th quarter around 11:00.
Just as we were leaving the Res. Therapist came in and said that Aaron’s numbers looked good & so did he and that he would like to see how Aaron handled being off of the vent over night. That got his attention as he has been wanting to try it for some time but was not allowed to this point. We will be anxious to talk to Diane today and see how that went.
We also were told by the head of nursing that when they knew Aaron was coming for sure she reserved Rm. 400 for him (it is the only room that doesn’t face a brick wall. Instead it has a beautiful view of Harrisburg facing Front Street & the river). Aaron has received outstanding care at every stop along the way but the folks here at Select seem to have an extra measure of compassion.

Pray for Aaron’s continued progress and healing, physically, emotionally, & spiritually.