Compare It To A Chess Match

Here are a few pictures of Aaron the last couple days. If you've been following the puppy photos you can see how much he has grown these last two weeks. Lately when Ronny and I are there he really wants to hold our fingers. When he can't find our fingers he goes after his tubes which are not the best choice for him! We try to find him things to hold when we can't hold his hands. He's getting smarter though and can tell when it is us holding his hand or something else we've put into his palm. He does seem to like to hold onto his puppy or duck.



Aaron does not feel good, he lets us know when his pain meds are not enough. He can't cry so he thrashes his arms and legs around and sets all the alarms off. Its hard finding a good sedative for him. It seems his meds are increased both in amount and frequency daily.
With Aaron being back on the Jet ventilator his belly has started to swell up again. Today it seems like we finally found the right settings to keep his lungs opened enough for him to saturate well. His FIO2 is finally back in the 50-60 range and he's maintaining 90's on his pulse ox. These machines are really loud. Today his nitric tank broke down. Getting a new one in and running was quite the juggling act. Making sure all the machines are hooked up and running right is very tedious and usually requires more than 1 or 2 Respiratory Therapists to get it up and going.The problem we are facing with Aaron right now is two fold. We are still trying to figure out what bug is causing the pneumonia and how to kill it. The other is trying to keep his lungs from collapsing and open long enough for us to figure out the first problem. Keeping his lungs open is tricky. As he is rotated the lung that is elevated tends to open up better while the lower tends to collapse and fill with secretions. Trying to get both to open up and get oxygen at the same time is like a battle between two chess champions trying to out think the other; his lungs wanting to close and his team trying to keep them open.

(Aunt Bonnie here is a picture of your Alaska Bear. It sits over Aaron's bed with his duck.)

Today Aaron seemed to finally stabilize some. For the first time in days I felt comfortable leaving and heading home to spend time with the kids and Ronny. We had some friends over to watch the football game and just had a great time with each other. Ronny went up later after the game to spend some time with Aaron while I got the kids settled in the basement for an indoor campout. Today has been the best day of the week.