Day Nine - Friday December 23, 2011 p.m.

It seems like this morning was a long time ago!  The dentist came by and looked at Bridgett's teeth.  He said only the front top four teeth were damaged.  They will all have to have caps put on, but thank goodness there is enough left to avoid having implants (not that they are bad, but a little easier on her perhaps).  He said that the front two teeth will probably need root canals.  He is coming at 8:00 tomorrow to put sealer on them so that when she wakes up the exposed nerve will not hurt.  He will also put on some type of coating to cover the sharp edges.  He said it will only take 5 minutes.  He is very sweet to come out on Christmas Eve.  He used to be a partner in California with one of our ward members in Bigfork.  Bridgett was still and quiet for quite a bit of the morning.  The trauma pa came in and wanted to make sure she was moving all of her extremities, and luckily she had moved them all a little.  The real exciting news was she was opening her eyes more.  Like I said earlier, opening the eyes doesn't mean awake.  She is still in a coma but she is what they consider very light, closer to coming out of it.  When he examined her he moved his hands quickly up in front of her face, like he was going to hit her and she blinked.  He did this twice and she blinked both times.  He said that her eyes are starting to work and she has reflex function.  For the first time her pupils are the same size.  So, ever so slowly we are moving towards waking up.  Later on in the day she began to move more.  All day she has had her eyes open off and on. This afternoon they removed the drain tube from her brain.  They said that the pressure is low now and the longer the tube is left in, the more chance for getting bacteria and infection.  One thing that surprised us when they removed the large bandage from her head was that she has a large incision or wound with about 12 staples.  We don't know anything about it and I asked one of the critical care doctors and he didn't know either.  He said we'll have to ask the guy that put the staples in (jokingly).  We will ask Dr. Gaufin tomorrow and hopefully he will be the one that knows.  One of the sad things has been seeing Bridgett cough while on the ventilator.  We have become accustomed to it now.  But now on the trach tube it is different and even more sad. Today while Stephany and Arrianne were with Bridgett, she began to choke and cough.  She coughed so hard that her face turned bright red and tears ran down her face.  Stephany was so very upset and came out crying.  Off and on since then she has coughed some.  They said she is having to adjust to the trach tube and it is irritating her.  The respiratory guy said that it will take maybe four days to get more comfortable to her. After they remove the stitches keeping it in place (in a few days) it will be more comfortable.  Did I mention that the feeding tube is stitched into place inside her nose so it didn't have to be taped as the ENT doctor didn't want it taped so close to her incision from the repair of the zygomatic arch.  News about my dad....he has been incoherent off and on the past two days and by early this evening they started a morphine drip.  They do not expect him to live through the night.  On Wednesday when I saw him we spoke.  He was so very tired.  I stroked his head and told him to rest.  He told me that he would rest in two days.....