2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back...

After breathing on his own for 5 hours yesterday, my Dad got tired and the pulmonologist decided that he should be back on ventilation in order to rest. His nurse mentioned that often times it's only overnight and then they let the patients breathe again on their own during the day. However, this particular pulmonologist happens to be somewhat conservative and chose to keep him on it for the daytime as well.
He is still looking better each day. His face us healing slowly but surely. The staples came out of his shoulder today, and they were planning to see if they could get the ones in the back of his head out as well, but his nurse needed a second set of hands to do that.
His chest tube is still in. His blood pressure is a little higher than it was a few days ago, but I believe that's normal since they have reduced his pain medication so he is feeling more pain than he was before. As far as I know, that can cause an elevation in blood pressure.
He has been off sedation completely for 3 days, and yesterday they started lowering the dose of his pain medications. Today, he was no longer on the pain drip, but he did have a patch that administered the medication to him in a lower dose, and they were giving him morphine in between if he seemed to need it.
A Speech Therapist came in today to start working with him in order to wake him up. The do a type of therapy called "Coma Stim". It's a technique that they use for patients in a coma or similar state (like my Dad) that helps to stimulate them and bring them up to consciousness. During the therapy, he was able to move some toes on his right foot when she asked him to.
The Speech Therapist will continue to work with him, not only on the Coma Stim, but once he's awake, he will have to re-learn how to swallow again since he now has a hole in his throat and his face has been rearranged. He will also need to learn to speak through the trach when the time comes. We've been told that it could be 3-4 more weeks before he will be stable enough to add the part of the trach that allows him to speak through it.
My little Brother, Josh, came into town today on the train. It's so good to see him, although we all wish it were under different circumstances. He and I got to visit our Dad for about an hour before they needed us to step out to change his bandages.
On our way out, we were informed that when we came back in, we would need to wear hospital gowns, gloves and possibly masks as well, because my Dad now has an infection. She told me the name, it started with a B from what I recall, but I can't remember it for the life of me. Anyhow, they didn't seem too concerned with how it may effect his recovery, but they did tell us that it was contagious and that we would have to gown up to protect ourselves from being exposed.
Josh and I went to grab a bite to eat and it took about an hour. That seemed like plenty of time to get the bandages changed, especially since it only took 40 minutes yesterday. But when we got back, they asked us to give them another 40 minutes, but didn't really tell us why. When I told Linda, she decided to call and see if everything was ok. We were hopeful that it meant that maybe he was coming around, but that wasn't why. Apparently, while she was changing his dressings, he got "Riled up". We don't know for sure what that means, but it more than likely means that he was in pain and got aggitated. I think Linda said that they gave him more pain meds and were working on finishing his bandaging still.
As of right now, I believe he is scheduled for surgery on his left arm later this week.
Thank you for your prayers.