Shannon has now been in the hospital (neurological intensive care) for eight days after a devastating fall and resulting head injury. I flew to Florida to be with her and her family and I’m still here. Her original prognosis in the ER was “zero chance of survival” so my first bit of good news was finding that she was still alive when I arrived in Florida.<\/p>\n
Since then the road has been rocky but yesterday we were finally told by one of her doctors that she “will survive” and that was a huge milestone.<\/p>\n
For the last four days we’ve been battling a demon in our effort to get Shannon off the ventilator. There are many interweaving complications in that effort due to her injuries and surgical interventions, including but not limited to a subdural hematoma, a craniotomy, and a broken cervical vertebrae.<\/p>\n
But late this afternoon Shannon finally got a break (of the good kind)\u00a0and was successfully weaned off the respirator. It was a dicey situation that could have resulted in a tracheotomy or worse but thankfully it did not. When I left her a couple of hours ago she was breathing unassisted, speaking a raspy few words and telling her family that she loved us.<\/p>\n
She’s come a long way from her original prognosis but she still has far to go and it’s going to take a while, perhaps a long while. Obviously at this point I still don’t know when I’ll get back home or get back to my regular blogging routine and at this point that’s the least of my concerns.<\/p>\n
But I will admit that it feels really strange to be making a blog post that doesn’t include an image.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the last four days we’ve been battling a demon in our effort to get Shannon off the ventilator.<\/p>\n