walking a fine line

Yesterday was a bit annoying because throughout the whole day, Spencer was either sleeping (due to overmedication) or highly agitated and confused (needing more medication... and quick!) The nurse was saying that she was going to give him a smaller dose early this morning so he'd be more alert for the physicians and therapists, however, there was a different nurse this morning, who didn't get that memo, and had given him a double dose right before 7:00. So as the parade of professionals came through, Spencer slept soundly and was unwakable.

We were able to communicate better with the nurses that our main goal for today was to help him be more alert without so much pain. This is a fine line to walk. Even with that as a goal, we didn't do so well through noon, but things have gotten better. Now instead of the morphine based drugs (which make him itchy and add to the agitation), we're now just working with vicodin and some anti-anxiety stuff. Much better! This is what we've gotten from him today:

Physical Therapy came in this morning to help him sit up. As mentioned before, he was pretty zombie-like and wasn't too keen with sitting on his cracked pelvis. He kept his eyes closed through the whole thing and kept shifting himself to find a more comfortable position. Unfortunately, that was tough to come by. The PT's had to work hard to keep him upright. What was cool, though, was that during the hullabaloo, Marcus had woken up and was squawking a little and Spencer located to him and wanted to see him. I brought the baby into his view and Spencer opened his eye and held the gaze to look at little Marcus. After we laid Spencer back down, I was holding Marcus across Spencer's chest and he was holding on to him and touching his arm, shoulders and back very lovingly. It was after this that we were able to get the medication balanced better.

Respiratory therapy has come in several times. Laying down so much makes it difficult to take deep breaths, so they do these positive pressure treatments. He didn't do as well on the first one, but the second was better.

Speech therapy came in again to try more feeding. He was sleeping when she got here, but we were willing to bug him enough to wake him up. He handled the ice, nectar juice, and pudding adequately, and even held the cup for some self feeding (with much assistance so he wouldn't need a second sponge bath for the day). To sum up her assessment, he is safe to feed as long as he is alert. But since that's been iffy all day, we're not going to push that. We keep trying to tell him that Diet Coke is worth waking up for. But he's not listening... he's too busy taking apart his cast.

We're currently trying to figure out WHERE and WHEN Spencer may be transferring hospitals. It's tricky when everyone is saying something different, but ultimately, before anything happens, we just need to know what the insurance is FOR SURE going to pay for.

One thing I wanted to add to this blog post (per Jen's request) is a request for prayers on behalf of Spencer's friends who witnessed the accident itself. Matt, Josh, and Rod were all there to save Spencer's life, and for that, our family is eternally grateful. We hope that they are finding peace in the progress Spencer is making (even if it's slow) and that they can get past the awful images and emotions of Spencer's worst moments.

Thanks for checking up on Spencer, everyone!