Results

Scott's first scan this morning was inconclusively so, after a long day, they finally conducted another scan this evening.  The doctors seem pretty sure that he is past the phase of increased swelling and bleeding.  Hooray!  And a huge sigh of relief.  I think this means we are past the very critical stage of the trauma.  He is stable.  The doctors hoped, however, that they would start to see some reduction in the swelling, and increased fluid drainage but that is not happening just yet.

I am sure it will be a restful, quiet night for Scott.  They plan to continue to monitor his clinical signs and are hoping to start to see some signs that indicate the swelling is going down overnight.  Doctors plan to run another scan to check on his progress either late tomorrow or Friday morning.

I want to clarify something from a previous post, the doctor explained this evening that they are not actually removing and reinserting the breathing tube as I was imagnining.  They have a switch on the tube and it has remained off since yesterday (Yay!) but they have not yet removed the tube.  Apparently the intubation and extubation procedure is very stressful and not something they can do repeatedly.  So, before they finally remove the breathing tube, they want to be sure that his breathing is strong enough to ensure he is getting the right amount of oxygen per minute.  So, they plan to give him another day or so to build up strength before they remove it.  They report that he is breathing strong and has so far not contracted the dreaded pneumonia.  (Pneumonia keeps getting mentioned - by everyone. They expect it to happen and apparently, when it does it can really slow progress.  So, it is very good that it has not happened yet.)

A huge thanks to EVERYONE for all the support, love, positive thoughts and prayers being sent this way - to Jen's neighbors who've made meals, to folks at Sephora for the goody bags for hospital staff, to everyone who put the donated music together that they are playing for Scott.   Thanks!  So many people are standing by for some direction in how they can help and don't worry, it will come.  This will be a long process and we are reminded by nurses that this is a marathon and not a sprint.