Remember Bucky, the young man who was ejected from the jeep and broke all the bones in the front of his chest? Well this morning, he said “Good Morning” to me! He was extubated about 2 days ago, which I could hardly believe, and has been extremely sedated since. We started him on methadone to help wean him off of the incredible levels of pain medicine, sedatives and paralytics that he had been on while he was being supported by the high frequency oscillator. The past 2 or 3 days, we’ve been drastically cutting back on his morphine, and now his methadone. So when I went in this morning and saw that his eyes were open and looking around the room, I could hardly believe it when he talked back to me. His voice was very, very quiet, like in an old western movie when you see a character leaning over a near dead body to hear their last words. I leaned close to him after asking him if he knew where he was, and he said “a treatment center”. I asked him if he remembered what happened and there was no answer. I told him he was in a car accident and he started to panic, his lep started to tremble and I rassured him that he was OK, that he was getting better. Finally, after mouthing some words for about 30 seconds he said “a car accident?” I was absolutely thrilled. It looks like he may pull all the way through this afterall. His mind may not be completely there, but he can understand and respond appropriately even if he is disoriented and doesn’t remember what happened to him.
Best Good Morning Yet
