24 hours later

Not much has changed. Neal is on the ventilator. It is giving him 14 breathes per minute. Later Saturday he was taking an extra breathe every minute. He is not responding to anything right now. The nurse claims he opened his eyes a couple of times, but I have yet to see it. They are having a hard time controlling his blood pressure and all they can think is that he is in pain, however there is no way for him to communicate that to us. We are hoping to get someone in neurology to look at him and try to figure out what is going on with his brain. His tongue is also very swollen. He looks like he has three lips and you cannot see his teeth. He bit it pretty hard and according to the doctors it is still attached, but is cut really bad. He is currently being restrained. Hopefully once he is awake the restraints will be removed if he can understand that he needs to be on the ventilator. He currently has a slight fever that they are keeping an eye on. The plan from here is to get the swelling down in his tongue and then put a trach in so that they can fix his tongue. His tongue will probably swell again, therefore they need to keep his breathing passage open. I will update again Sunday.

I bit my tongue and now I am on a ventilator?!?!

No this is not the title of the new tv drama.

Neal had a rough night Friday. We are not exactly sure what happened and he does not know either, but we are guessing he fell and bit his tongue. He has a pretty big bruise on his thigh and supposedly a bump on the back of his head. Unfortunately he was alone when this happened. By the time I got home, we had quite a mess of blood, a very swollen tongue and a very confused Neal. The ER treated him quickly as a trauma patient. The initial concern was his breathing passage. To stabilize this, he had to be put on a ventilator. They then ruled out a stroke or heart attack. We may never know what happened. Perhaps a seizure or just a bad fall. The next step is to figure out what to do about his tongue. Apparently he did quite a number on it. The doctors still have not provided us with any updates. He is in the SICU at OSU. Visitors are not currently allowed except family and O+ kidney donors (sorry I have to add some humor). He cannot talk and is restrained, therefore visitors just make him frustrated. I will keep you posted, but am assuming I must be patient as nothing happens too quickly. Thanks to Stacy and Chris for hanging around with me all night at the hospital and Greg the purple shirt guy who was very friendly! I guess Neal's return to work will be a short one.

Blood Test

Ryan and I had our blood tested and we are still a match. We had to have it tested again because I received a blood transfusion during my colon surgery. We will have to have our blood tested one more time before the surgery. The transplant is scheduled for Jan. 15th. Cross your fingers.

-Neal