Saturday Dec. 17, 2011

Bridgett's ICP''s are higher, but for a good reason.  She has been trying to wake up, so they have had to increase the sedation to keep her under.  They have been talking about when the swelling peaks, but the trauma doctor says that is incorrect semantics.  They have not allowed the pressure to peak.  Her CT scan from last night shows improvement, with the ventricles starting to open up.  At this point if things continue as they are, they will slowly stop the sedation on Monday to allow her to start waking up from the coma on her own time frame. They said that she won't just come out of the coma immediately,  She was moving a lot this morning and her ICP's were up to 36, so they increased the sedation and closed the blinds to keep it dark.  We are continuing to keep her stimulus as low as possible; only light, quick touching with no stroking, limited people in the room, very quiet talking, etc.  They have tentatively scheduled surgery on her cheek for Tuesday.  This will involve entering the cheek area from the mouth or eyelid, moving the bones back into place and putting in a metal plate.  At this time we are not sure what needs to be done with the nose.  As far as the air pockets in the lungs, they are stable and they said they will resolve on their own over the next couple of weeks.  The bruising on the left side of the brain is a little smaller.  They changed her neck collar to a soft one, removing the very large stiff collar.  They said that if she did not have the brain trauma, they would put on a collar and send her back to school and the neck would heal over the next 6-8 weeks.  We are still thinking that she will be in the ICU for about three weeks.