Re-cap of Aileen

I have been meaning to post this forever, so I am going to backtrack a little bit.

On Saturday December 2, Aileen finally passed the breathing test to come off of the ventilator. We had been 6 days of every morning the same thing!!! She could not get past the 'numbers' she needed to safely take her off. Finally on Saturday morning, with us all there, she PASSED!! Within about an hour they tell us they are taking her off the ventilator. We were all so excited, scared, nervous, and on pins and needles!! They made us leave the room while they did this. That was the longest 20 minutes of the whole stay!!! They finally came out and told us we could come in!! There she was, with OUT a tube in her mouth!! They told her she could not talk for about an hour, and needless to say that was difficult for her!!! She for sure had things to SAY!! 

Each day you could see her becoming better and better with her breathing. She did have a frightful spell about 10 hours off the vent. Respitory brought in a bi-pap, and boy did she protest over that!! She would NOT wear it---it went over her mouth and nose, and was very cumbersome, and just plain uncomfortable.  However, she needed to get rid of the Co2 building up in her body, so it was NEEDED!! After a quick trip back up to the hospital by Steve and I , he finally convinced her she MUST wear it. A nice guy from RT brought in a smaller mask, that did about the same thing, and she agreed to wear that. Finally she went to sleep, and all was well.  The next morning, she was doing even better.  She continued to amaze all of us the next few days!!! 

She went to William Newton Hospital for some extra special care in the swing unit. They were able to help her get her strength back, and help her with showers and such.  She came home from the swing unit on Monday and settled in nicely to her home. She was so happy to be home, and we are all very thankful she is home and doing so much better.

She certainly scared the entire family, but she is an amazingly strong woman!! We even managed to have Christmas at her house the day after Christmas. It was very nice just her boys and their spouses, it was a very low keyed Christmas, but one that we were NOT sure we could have at the first of the month.