Another Night and Link-o-rama

Tim's stay at what will soon be the old Children's has been primarily a dull one the last several days, which as always is relatively good news.  The nearly dozen drips from earlier in the week are long gone with just a handful left behind.  The annoying nasal cannula (which was barely even doing anything anyway since it was getting disconnected from the airflow every time Tim moved) came off this morning.

Other than that the only day to day excitement we've had is trying to get Tim to eat which has been harder than most that know Tim would think  Of course all that medicine, the time and the vent and being in a hospital probably all contribute to Tim's lack of appetite.  He seems to be very sensitive to taste right now too, with any amount of salt or other seasoning making him proclaim that the food is spicy.  Today's attempt, which so far has been more successful, featured some yogurt, Cheerios and dry toast.  Small steps make for giant strides.

The last couple of nights Tim has shown some wear from everything though.  He's gotten confused, forgotten things that just happened, worried more about blood draws and tried to convince us that a chair in the room was where he needed to sleep.  After talking things over with the doctors and getting an assessment done the doctors are not terribly concerned because Tim's long term memories, reflexes and other cognitive functions all are where they should be.  His issues could be for so many different reasons it is hard to say exactly why this was happening: not enough to eat, too much oxygen, after effects of all the drugs, not enough sleep, etc.  One of the nurses even mentioned something called ICU psychosis which can be because of all the stimulus from the ICU sometimes causing this kind of thing.  One thing was for certain, after getting as good a night's sleep as he could last night he looked and sounded better and even made a claim that he was just acting confused the night before to give Jeff a hard time.

Today the doctors say they plan to get Tim's arterial line disconnected from any drips which means it should be easier for him to get up and walking.  Other than that, everyone is just getting ready for the big move to the new hospital tomorrow.  We should find out where Tim is in the schedule later in the day today, but everyone is pretty sure Tim will be moved early in the day which is good news for us.  So much easier to get it out of the way than be stuck waiting as the schedule gets behind as the day goes on.

Finally, some links:

Article on Tim and the move to the new hospital:  http://www.suntimes.com/13022057-761/childrens-memorial-ready-to-roll-in-transfer-of-most-precious-cargo.html

Photo gallery from the same article featuring lots of pictures of Tim:  http://www.suntimes.com/13022057-761/childrens-memorial-ready-to-roll-in-transfer-of-most-precious-cargo.html:  


Article about the move with a picture/video capture from the news story earlier this week:  http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/New-Childrens-Hospital-Move-158092035.html

For those in the Chicago area, apparently channel 5's morning news re-used some footage from earlier in the week featuring Tim, so keep an eye on the broadcasts today and tomorrow and you may catch another story with Tim in it.