Saturday, April 5th Update: GRAPENEHISODA

OK everyone, this is Tim posting - which means you now have an artist reporting rather than a nurse, so you'll have to forgive any medical misspellings or gaps in knowledge. There are many degrees of separation between art speak and doctor speak.  Thank you Flora for keeping everyone so well updated!

 I was able to travel down for the night and stay with Dad in his room. Mom and I are here now, waiting on doctors to make their rounds. Here is the update: 
- Bronchoscopy went well yesterday. They were able to get a lot out, but it did seem to leave him feeling pretty raw in his lungs last night.
 - Heparin is started, which will thin his blood some to prevent future clotting. Only negative with this so far seems to be that his face is stubbly and the nurses advised against shaving him (for fear of cutting his face, causing extra bleeding). So Mom's kisses will be a little scruffy. :) She rolled with it: "That's OK. We can go with the Duck Dynasty look for now!"
- His PICC line was switched to his other arm.
 - The night was uneventful, with Dad resting and the nurse being very attentive to both Dad and me (bringing ME an extra blanket. Dad stays pretty hot so they keep his room like an icebox, which he prefers).
 - This morning they have strapped an inflatable, vibrating vest thing-y around his chest (artist speak, not doctor speak) that is supposed to help loosen any gunk in his lungs. (10am: just did the vest procedure and he did great. No drop in any numbers and said it felt fine on him. This should help him keep things loose and better suctioned going forward)
- His numbers today already show improvement, and appear to confirm that yesterday's treatments are working: Temperature 98.7 and white blood cell count down to 18 (still elevated, but lowest it's been since this infection started and he had to go to ER. And 7 points down from yesterday!)
- Still not very "verbal," and has more difficulty spelling words with alphabet system. It's possible this is due to the medication he is on making him drowsy. Despite his difficulty spelling, he did just spell for Mom and me: "GRAPENEHISODA" Took us a moment, then realized he wants a grape soda (brand name Nehi)! He wants to taste something - grape soda specifically! Unfortunately, nurse says no due to possible drip/interference with trach. Instead, he gets a lemon mouth swab. Sorry, Dad. :(

 I also wanted to add my own huge THANK YOU to everyone who has been helping with my dad. In so many ways you have helped him by either helping my mom or Becky and me. It has become a kind of "pay it forward" thing: where your help to us has made it possible for us to pass that help along to Dad. When this thing first started, and I was driving with my mom between one place or another and several church friends were simultaneously mobilizing to help move storage stuff here or there, I told Mom that the most difficult part of moving to Fort Wayne was that we would have a harder time being readily available should something significant happen to them. We tried not to get our hopes up too much when they entertained moving to Fort Wayne to be near us, but I can't deny the disappointment when they didn't. That said, when driving around with my mom and already seeing the friends and church members flooding in to help however needed, I told her that I could see now just how loved and supported they are here. How, even though my sister and I wish we could be more present for every part of this process, we can see that Mom and Dad are in really, really good hands. Thank you for being such good friends to my parents. It means more than I am able to express.