Day 20....Tyler has been resting since yesterday. His days continue to be busy with physical therapy, occupational therapy, doctor's visits, the excellent care he is getting from the nurses that are taking of him and the constant love and attention from all of his family and friends. Tyler is still in a coma but is doing better today. He is again responding a little bit by squeezing hands, nodding his head yes or no and even opening his right eye when he is asked.
The respiratory therapists have been continuing to work with Tyler to get him strong enough to breath completely on his own with no help from the ventilator. Today he has been off the ventilator with just an oxygen mask for over 5 hours. This is the longest Tyler has been off the ventilator and is a great achievement for him!
The cardio-thoracic surgeon was also in today to see him about his collapsed lung. Tyler will be getting a CAT scan of his chest sometime today or tomorrow so that they can decide if he will need surgery next week to fix his lung, or if it will be okay to just leave his chest tube in a while longer and see if that will fix it without having to go to surgery.
Tyler and all of his family are very thankful for the outpouring of support and prayers from all of their family and friends and everyone in the community (including all of the nursing students from Northwest State University!).