Sunday January 1st 11:00

On our visit with Papa this morning we were happy to see his eyes open. The nurse explained that they had reduced his sedative in order to put his vent on C-pap mode. He would be "awake" for about 2 hours on c-pap in order to exercise his lungs, and later they would sedate him and put vent on once again. This process will be repeated every few hours.This will open his up his lungs, exercising them and allowing them to be stronger when they eventually remove him from the vent. He is still connected to the CRRT dialysis machine and they increased his fluid amount from 400 ccs to 450 ccs , which is good. White cell count did rise again to 25, but our nurse had warned us about that yesterday saying that this number will fluctuate and that is normal as long as there is infection still present. He didn't seem overly worried. He said that Dr. Townsend, the surgeon,came in this morning and was very pleased with the progress. While I talked to Papa he was definitely aware of what was going on. I kissed his cheek and rubbed his forehead. I asked him if he knew where he was, and he gave me a little nod...so I told him that he was @ Ochsner, that his ulcer had made him sick, but he had the best Dr.s and nurses here and we were always here with him. I held his hand and he did squeeze it. We were all able to talk to him. It was wonderful! Thanking everyone for the prayers and please keep them coming
LALA. (Mary Ellen) and family