At the OU Medical Center you can order "room service" meals. In other words, you select what you want from the menu and when you want each meal to arrive. Beverly expected to get cream of wheat around 8am and instead she got a biscuit covered with gravy AND brown sugar on the side! This didn't sound too appetizing and we were going to call "room service" to correct the order but Beverly said she probably wouldn't eat it anyway so just had Ensure with protein powder. The respiratory therapist arrived around this time and switched her to "5" on the "pressure support" setting. We've been told this is about as low as they go. She went all day on this setting with no problems at all.
Brian (Bill's replacement for the weekend) arrived early to begin the new respiratory treatments. This went very well and Beverly showed good improvement from the day before. We squeezed in a facial and foot bath before the occupational therapists arrived for exercises on the side of the bed. Even though Beverly feels very unstable during these exercises, each day she is making progress with her strength and balance. Today she was placed in a wheelchair using a lift/swing that made the transfer easy. While she was sitting in this chair with straps which hold her in place, speech therapy came and after some breathing exercises, put on the speaking valve. She had the valve on for nearly 45 minutes. She noticed that one of her doctors was across the pod and thought it would be fun to call his name. "Hello Dr. Carlile!" He turned and looked at her with a big smile, so happy to hear her voice for the first time. Brian came again later in the day for more breathing exercises and the talk among the respiratory therapists is that tomorrow MAY be the day to try a few minutes or hour?) off the ventilator. We'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!
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