Katie Update #14

Things continue to progress well with Katie's recovery. Aside from a fluctuating temperature (moving pretty regularly between 99 and 102--hopefully still simply a reaction to the drugs she is receiving), she is doing well. This morning, the neurologists gave a thumbs up to move her Pentobarbitol levels down once again. She is now receiving exactly half the dosage she was receiving for the majority of last week and is tolerating it well. Her EEG scans still show no seizure activity and we think that perhaps her brain activity is beginning to look somewhat more normal, at least considering how sedated she is. As I've stated before, we simply cannot know whether she will return to her old self until she awakens and has some time to flush all of these drugs from her system. Patience is still to order of the day.

The other good news today is that the doctors stopped administering the paralytic agent to Katie. Thus, we are now seeing some movement from her--occasional muscle movement, blinking, and weak coughing. This sounds minor, but is very exciting since she's been kept completely paralyzed since Tuesday, January 25th. She is now down to only six IV lines from a high of twelve. She is even "eating" formula now through a tube leading to her intestines instead of taking in all of her nutrition intravenously. Yesterday they completely stopped feeding her intravenously and are relying on her gastric system entirely. Again, very positive progress.

We still don't know how quickly they will wean her from the remaining Pentobarbitol or when we might see some signs of true consciousness. At the current rate, she would be completely off of the Pentobarbitol by Wednesday morning, though they could decide to accelerate or decelerate the weaning depending on how her body and brain react. Even once she is off of the drug, she is likely to remain unconscious for some time afterwards simply because the drug remains in her system for quite a while. With any luck, though, we may have her off of the ventilator and semi-conscious this time next week if not earlier. We are all anxious for this, though I imagine it will be traumatic and minimally very uncomfortable for Katie for some time following her return to consciousness. However, we'll all be there to comfort her and to read all of your e-mails, prayers, messages, and cards to her until she feels better and is ready to start what is likely to be a long and difficult physical and perhaps mental rehabilitation process.

As always, thanks for your continued prayers and messages of support. This has been and continues to be a very trying time for all of us, and you are all making it much more bearable. Your kindness and love will never be forgotten.

Sincerely,
Paul