It’s an overcast morning on the South Channel, with a hint that more showers may be in store for us today. The rain last night slowed to a steady pace, but sufficient in volume and duration to allow it to soak into the peat laden soil. It’s currently 19°C (66°F) and comfortable, and the mosquitoes are noticeably more numerous after being resurrected by the rain.

I’m busy packing up things and preparing for the big “push” later today for the trip home. The just power came back on at 9:10 AM this morning. This is reassuring, as I didn’t feel comfortable leaving without knowing for sure all the lights and electrical devices here at the cottage were in a “turned off” state. Having the power go off is a regular part of having a cottage in Georgian Bay. In our situation, it’s not really so bad since we use propane for our cooking and most of our hot water, and our water system is gravity fed. I pumped our water tank full as soon as thunderstorms threatened yesterday just in case we lost power. I guess I chose wisely.

The report from the hospital was pretty much the same as last night. Pop is still slowly improving and stable. The pressure settings on his ventilator were lowered slightly (IP 65, PEEP 16) and the FiO2 level is still at 40%. The doctors are expected to be late making their rounds today. Since this is a Monday, it will take extra time for the weekend crew to turn things over to the weekday shift. The ICU staff is preparing to perform a tracheotomy on Pop sometime this week. Although this sounds extreme, it’s really a normal step in the slow process of weaning a long term ventilation patient off the ventilator entirely. Having an intubation tube inserted down your throat is very uncomfortable and requires much more effort when breathing. Doing a tracheotomy will lessen the stress from these things and allow the doctors to decrease the sedation Pop is under, so thay can slowly start to wake him up. Click on this link for more information about a Tracheotomy.