Second verse, same as the first

Drew awakened from his ventilator tube experience with a hoarse, slowed speech and a sassy sense of humor. He asked the nurse to dance, asked everyone to give him a high five (even though he could not lift his arm), and told one nurse his mom would pay if she would carry him upstairs to his old room. His long, sedative-enhanced drawl would have made the slowest Southerner sound like a speed reader by comparison. It took two folks to sort out what he said - one to listen and one to remember how the sentence started. After what must have been our most entertaining six hours in Drew's life, we all went home and Drew went back to sleep last night after giving the nurses another few hours of comedy.

Unfortunately, it was a one-show tour. This morning, he could not be aroused from sleep. After a hasty CT scan confirmed no brain problems, he remained sleeping and redeveloped his labored breathing and deteriorating respiratory measures of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and volume. (The average breath is about 500 ml, or about a pint of air. Drew makes the machine beep with breaths of nearly 2000 ml, or about a half gallon of air. That's why they call it your "tidal volume". More is not necessarily good). His fever also returned today, and so the 13 people showed up at his door again, ushered us out, and reinserted the ventilator and feeding tubes. We are back to the opening chorus - another verse of the "Ventilator Blues".

On the positive side, Wanda and her friends are continuing to flourish. We became excited when the magic white blood cell first count hit 0.4. Today it is 3.1. While Drew sleeps, his other progress continues, so maybe this extra verse will not affect the timing of the grand finale (which is the day we go home, of course).