Roller Coaster

The highs are high, and the lows are low.

On Sunday night, Ryan started trying to rip his trach out (ouch!), so we ended up needing to put restraints on his arms, which he doesn't appreciate. Sunday night was a sleepless night, so we were already awake and ready to go when the transportation team arrived to take Ryan to the other hospital for his MRI.

The trip to the other hospital yesterday was really rough. They did not give him any of his pain medications before we left, so by the time we arrived, Ryan was bright red, soaked with sweat, and extremely agitated from being strapped into the stretcher. It took almost two hours to get him entirely checked in and see the anesthesiologist, but then they were finally able to give him some medication for the pain and anxiety.

Ryan's anxiety has been increasing. We are pretty sure it's a side-effect from one of the medications they have him on, so we are working on weaning him off of that.

After we got back from the MRI yesterday, the respiratory therapist was excited to get Ryan's trach switched out to a smaller one. 💜😊 It was a very quick procedure, and right away the therapist put a cap on his trach so that all of his breathing would actually be through his nose and mouth. The trach is just there for emergencies now. If he does well for a few days, they will remove the trach completely, and we can then look at transferring him to a different facility closer to home! And it is SOOO good to hear his voice again!!! 💜💜💜 So far he hasn't had issues with breathing or swallowing.

Having family visit was wonderful! Our girls especially loved hearing their daddy's voice yesterday! 💜💜💜

Ryan's physical therapist came in yesterday afternoon. Ryan was already exhausted from a long morning and lack of sleep, but he worked with his therapist for as long as he could. He really is making great progress. His therapist thinks he could be a good candidate for an in-patient rehabilitation program, if he continues to improve like he has. That means he would be transferred to another hospital where the main goal would be rehabilitation, with 3 hours a day of therapy (instead of the 1 hour a day he gets here). He said that not everyone is a good candidate for that, and they have to get special approval through insurance and stuff. The other option would be to send him to a skilled nursing facility where the focus would be more on medical care than on physical rehabilitation. So far, his therapist is in awe at how quickly Ryan is progressing. :) He wants to get him standing up, and start getting him on the exercise equipment...but first we have to get his lungs cleared up.

Ryan had MRSA, and it turned into pneumonia. He was on a rigorous antibiotic treatment, and they finally cleared the MRSA, but now he has some other bacteria in his lungs. One doctor thinks they should just let his body fight it off, and another one thinks they should do another round of antibiotics. I need more information on this...hopefully we'll find out more today.

Yesterday Ryan told me that he wanted to rip all of the leads off of his chest and take his trach out, but he knew that he shouldn't do that. But as the night wore on, his anxiety increased, and he finally just ripped his trach out of his throat! The respiratory therapist was able to get it back in, and Ryan actually did ok while it was out, but it could have been bad! Because of that, he had to be restrained again.

Ryan is getting a lot more irritable, too...which is completely understandable when you look at all that he's going through! He struggles with loud noises, and commented that he wanted to rip someone's head off for slamming the door to his hospital room. Yesterday while we were checking him into the other hospital for his MRI, they didn't have his exact weight for the anesthesiologist. At the little hang-ups in the checking-in process, Ryan made comments expressing his frustration like, "Figures..." and "Of course!". Then he felt bad for those little "outbursts", and apologized to me that he was "being such a jerk"! He's such a nice guy, and I told him that he definitely wasn't being a jerk! He then asked how I was doing -- I'm not the one in extreme physical pain! But even through it all, he's still my Ryan and he shows how much he cares about others. 💜

This morning, after another sleepless night, Ryan was very irritated and told me that he wanted to talk, but that first he wanted the restraints removed from his arms. I asked why he wanted the restraints removed, and he said "because I want to take all of this stuff off of me!" He wasn't in a good mental state, and as we talked a little more, I realized that he was a bit altered. He kept talking about how I was just here to do a job, and how he was trying to do his job, but that no one would listen to him or trust him and they kept treating him like a baby. He said the Spirit was telling him that he needed to get a job, so he wanted to see more applications in order to figure out what job he needed. He also kept insisting that he had had his trach in for a few days already, and it needed to come out now. After talking with him for a while, he finally said, "So, you're telling me that I haven't been working here?" We discussed how he was at this hospital to get better -- that's his current job -- and that his job at Bingham is being held for him for a couple more months, if he can work hard and recover from this brain injury. It came down to trust. I asked if he trusted me to tell him what was really happening, and he said he did trust me and he calmed down. Then we listened to some general conference talks, and he has been doing much better since.

The itching has also been driving him crazy (especially when he's in restraints and can't scratch his face). We just tried some Benadryl to see if that helps, and he is finally getting some sleep.

He also told me yesterday that his back pain is worse than he's ever felt before. :(

Today's plan is to let him sleep while he can, and then get him up into a chair for a little while. I'm not sure which therapists will work with him today, or when they'll be here, but hopefully he'll be feeling a little better by then.

We are very blessed!!! Thank you again, for your continued prayers in Ryan's behalf!