I just returned from the hospital, and Pop is still holding his own. Mariah, his nurse tonight, said his vital signs weren’t as strong as they had been recently, but that they were all within acceptable ranges. He was sweating profusely when I got there, but he had taken a fever earlier and Mariah had given him a dose of Tylenol that had just caused the fever to break. His temperature was at 37.6°C (99.7°F) when I was there around midnight. The doctors think he may still have a secondary infection and ordered his main arterial line and other lines changed as a precaution, which the nurses and technicians completed this afternoon.

Pop was back on the paralytic Atricurium tonight, but the Attending Physician told my mother today this was a strategy to help lower the pressure settings on the ventilator so they could perform a tracheotomy soon, hopefully tomorrow. The doctors would like everything to be optimal when they do the “trach”, but they feel with increasing urgency that the benefits of getting a tracheotomy outweigh the risks of doing one, even if the conditions aren’t perfect. I suspect they will move to complete the procedure tomorrow unless they really feel his body can’t take it. We are hopeful that this will help him get onto the fast track the track to recovery.

Hang in there, Pop. We are all here for you.