DAY THREE

Day three is now here. Ammon seems to be feeling a little better today but it was a little frightening last night. Gillian and Kaitlin came up to see Ammon and to bring Dad back. The girls had a pretty hard time when they saw Ammon. It's a scary scene at first. He was very happy to see them although the smiles are few and far between. He has been very alert and talking since yesterday afternoon. He had about three hours of really good time - feeling a bit better, relieved to have the tube out, and seemed to be making great progress. His lungs were still very full of junk so they had to suction them out and he hates that. We kept trying to get him to cough the stuff out but he just couldn't. After the girls left, Ammon began to nose dive a bit. He got a pretty good fever, glazed eyes and was very short with us - that's the sign that he doesn't feel well. We decided that he needed some quiet time and so we left about 8:45. I worried about him most of the night, but when I called the nurse this morning about 6:30, she said he had a good night. His fever broke, they suctioned him out four times and he seemed to be comfortable.
Today they started feeding him a little bit and took him off the high flow oxygen. He is still on oxygen (6 liters at this point which is high), but he is doing well. He was very talkative this morning but then the orthopedic people came in and started with the weights. They attached a rope to the top of his halo and let it drape over the top of the bed and then added a 5 lb weight. Five pounds seems like an awful lot of weight to be pulling on the skull and he isn't a happy camper when it's on. I have had to take it off twice to give him a break but he has to get used to it and he doesn't like it.
Oh boy - this is going to be a long five weeks!