Update from Mike, 2/5

Thursday 2/5
Tough Day!
Well our road to recovery started early at 6am this morning. The respiratory therapist came in and took Karen off of the ventilator and away we went. We only got about 2hrs sleep, so I was a little worried as to how our breathing session would go. Plus the doctors were expecting Karen to go 6 hrs today off of the ventilator breathing on her own. Trepidation consumed my mind since Karen had only gone 2hrs off of the ventilator so far and now she was being expected to go 3 times as much this morning.
Right from the beginning Karen was having difficulty breathing on her own. She was complaining of her chest hurting and not being able to breathe. All of her numbers were saying just the opposite. They showed that she was breathing just fine yet Karen was in pain and gasping for air. She struggled through the first two hours with me encouraging and pushing her. During the third hour Karen wanted to quit, but the doctors told her she had to keep going. I was between a rock and a hard place because I need to be Karen's advocate with the doctors yet I also know she has to be pushed. Karen was in a great deal of pain, but I wasn't letting her quit which made her even more upset and mad at me. Then her numbers started dropping and the alarms began going off. The nurses had to come in and give her assistance since she was struggling so much. For t first time I found myself really wondering whether Karen was ever going to be able to get off of the ventilator. It was a very difficult time watching the respiratory therapist put Karen back on the ventilator. The goal was 6 hrs and we just made 3. The way things are going I don't see us going past 3 hrs. My Pom poms had no magic in them today and I failed to help Karen reach her goal.
One of the doctors came in to talk to us about Karen's situation. She is still in training and always comes in every day with the lead doctor, but never really talked. She saw how upset both of us were in not reaching the goal and how depressed we were with 3 hr struggle. She told us that she is going to be changing the plans for Karen coming off the ventilator. She is going to slow things down a little because she doesn't want Karen to get so upset when she is attempting to come off of the ventilator because she wants Karen to always see success thus building confidence within herself. They are always going to be progressing every day, but in smaller steps. I'm still worried about Karen getting off the ventilator and getting to go home because the way things are going right now, that's not going to happen for some time. I tried to tell the doctors that Karen needed different a different plan. They were pushing her so hard because Karen had been soaring through the physical therapy objectives so quickly, they figured the respiratory part of getting Karen off the ventilator would follow right along. Well they were wrong and they surprisingly admitted it. So tomorrow we will try to go from 3hrs to 4 hrs. So keep your fingers crossed for a successful session. We have to get off the respirator.