ICU Day 7 (Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012)

Last night Eric got his first sponge bath hehehe They also shaved off his awesome beard that he had going. Eric's brother stayed with him at the hospital. I ended up making a schedule of people that can help stay with him so that I can get some rest at home and take care of Ms Tayvia plus everyone gets to see him more often. win win!

From the second(ish) night that Eric was in the ICU they were having a hard time getting an I.V. started in his right arm. After a few tries they finally got one on the other arm. Somehow during those attempts they must have hit an artery. oops! Normally you would get a nice looking bruise but being that Eric is on chemo it magnifies things.

This morning when the doctors came in to talk to us and give us an update on how Eric is doing we received some good news! They said that Eric would be able to get off of the ventilator today! YAY! We even got a fist pump out of Eric on that one. His "peep" level was down to 5 and Oxygen at 40 which were the qualifications to being freed. They said that removing the ventilator would probably happen after his trip for radiation treatment at the Huntsman Cancer Center. They also wanted to get another CT Scan of his brain to make sure that things had calmed down which they did!

3:00pm Update from Justine
The breathing tube is out! hip hip hooray!!!

Eric had to breath through the cpap for a couple hours before going to the regular oxygen tubes.

With the help of a physical therapist Eric was able to get out of the hospital bed and into a chair for a little bit. When he first sat up and dangled his legs over the edge he had to sit for a minute due to dizziness but he made it over. It wasn't long before Eric was quite tired and was helped back into bed.

Using oxygen and a feeding tube.

Justine's co-workers brought this awesome poster showing their love and support!

Eric loved the poster collage of Tayvia today. Justine's mom thought that since he hadn't seen her in almost a week he was probably missing her. All of the nurses and hospital staff just loved looking at it.