Update on Tuesday, April 30th, 2013

Update on Ben Wolverton

It is now almost four weeks since Ben fell off of his longboard.

Yesterday he was very sick, and the doctors couldn't find the source of his infection. So they scheduled a spinal tap last night, but then his fever suddenly went down before they could do it.

When Mary went in to see him this morning, Ben was wide awake and struggling to get his tubes out. He has feeding tubes in his nose, IV tubes in his leg, breathing tubes, and so on. So she said that they had three nurses trying to calm him. After looking him over, the doctor told Ben that he would take out Ben's tubes, and Ben calmed down. As soon as they got them out, and figured out a way to let him move his legs a bit (they had to keep him tied down,) Ben relaxed and fell asleep.

The good news is that he is being a bit more responsive. Yesterday when Mary went into his room, she recognized that Ben's eyes were puffy, as if he had been crying. When his nurse came in, she asked him if he was cold, and she shook his head "no." Then she asked if he was in pain, and he nodded his head yes. That's the first time that he has given us yes/no indications in the past month.

So Ben's fever has gone down, and he's still very uncomfortable, but he seems to be on the mend. Now we have to see if we can get him swallowing enough so that he can drink and eat.

We may be able to move him up to rehab in the next few days, if he continues to improve.