Saturday

We just got here and they just put dad back on the ventilator about a half hour ago. He made it 48 hours!!! They put him back on due to his high HR and resps. He is really tired and sleeping now. He acknowledged us when we came in and shook his head yes when I asked if he was tired. We rented some movies so we will let him sleep for awhile.

I am kind of curious what will happen if he gets moved to Waterloo. It is very apparent to me that he seems to have great long term memory and if you ask the right questions, he can nod yes or no appropriately. However, he seems a bit forgetful and it may not be that severe. He didn't remember having the head CT or the speaking evaluation, but he knew how long he had been off the vent. He can look at you when you speak, but he doesn't seem to be able to look at the letter board we brought. He looks at it, but he cant make his eyes look directly at a letter that he wants and then he tends to look at the ceiling.

Do we need to wait until all of his infections have cleared up and get to the point where we can rehab him to then get to the point where they can evaluate his cognitive and physical ability? Can we bring someone in to do some type of testing now to give us some sort of a prognosis? I would hate for him to just become a victim of the system and have no one be proactive into making him better and just let him be because he is alive. Can his apparent deficits that he has now get better with work now, or risk not getting better because of lack of therapy? I am not sure who to even ask these questions to. Dr. Lopes has been great but I don't think he is his primary physician since he is a surgeon.

I don't want to get him to Waterloo until he us stable enough to be there and I would like him to go there and have a group of doctors who are willing to take on his care. Willing and ABLE. I don't think it will be healthy to keep dragging him back to Chicago to Rush because some doctor in Waterloo is afraid to touch him like what happened at Mercy in Des Moines. Dad's insurance no longer pays for ambulance transports anyway and a full paramedic transport to take him anywhere is a few grand.

Anyway, I should type all this up and have Martha go over a lot of questions I have with RML before he gets transported out. Going back to Iowa will certainly be easier on all of our pocketbooks, but I don't want him back yet if he really isn't ready. I hate insurance companies.