End of day report for Tuesday, January 08

SHE SPEAKS!

The speech pathologist came to visit today and Kim managed her first words in 3.5 weeks! To accomplish this, the balloon that holds the trache in place down in Kim’s throat was deflated a bit to allow air to pass by, and the it was just a matter of dusting off the old vocal chords. Kim’s first (quite hoarse) words? “Thank you for all you’ve done, Mom”. I mean, how sweet is that? Right?! After a few more words her balloon was re-inflated and it was back to reading lips. She’ll work a bit more on this each day to slowly bring her vocal chords back to full strength, but it’s already a relief to know that they weren’t damaged by the tubes.

Also, Kim walked 90 feet today, doubling her previous record! All this without vent support, so it seems super likely they’ll just call it quits on the vent once and for all tomorrow. She’ll still have to wean slowly off the trache, but she can be much more mobile not having to lug that machine around wherever she goes. Slowly but surely she’s breaking free of all the tethers.

The med team has also moved her off of morphine and onto oxycodone as part of stepping down her pain management therapy.  Another good sign of their optimism at how well Kim is doing.

But perhaps the best news is there is a very good chance that Kim will be discharged from ICU in the next day or two and sent to “the floor” which is the less intensive unit.  Once there, we’ll all start to focus on home care and managing the new drug regimen, but if all goes smoothly we could have Kim home in a week or so.  SWEET!