Well I am happy to report that my Dad is doing much better this week.
He was finally (FINALLY) extubated on Tuesday morning after 17 days on the ventilator. He can talk, and they have evaluated his swallowing and OK'd him today to start eating hospital food. Not sure if that is a blessing or not :-)
He is no longer sedated and no longer on any pain meds, but we are starting to see the effects that prolonged use of these drugs has taken. It appears that Dad is suffering from something called ICU Psychosis or ICU Syndrome. Basically, he is unable to separate fantasy from reality (delusional), and is hallucinating. He says that he has some "very strange"memories of the time he has spent in ICU, and many of them may not be real. This is apparently fairly common in people that have been sedated for long periods of time in the ICU, and it should go away completely when he leaves ICU.
Yesterday he was agitated, and was talking about not living much longer. That made for a tough and sad day for all of us. Today he was, well...amusing. I will protect him from any embarrassment, but, for example, he seems to have an intense craving for fruit (mangoes and grapes especially), and says that his water is not water, but it tastes delicious. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next several days to weeks.
The physical therapy team also started working on the goal of getting him to stand up and get out of bed. You can imagine that we are so excited to see such major steps taken this week (no pun intended).
2 comments:
Pelt- That is great to hear. I can only what his poor body and mind have been through lately! I hope he is back to himself soon!
Wow. As much as your family has gone through since July 3 - it is just a miracle your Dad is here. God must have a plan for him.
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