Aug 19, 2011

Exchanging the Trach Tube Ourselves

Last night, Hajime slept rather well. But he seemed very sleepy from morning today. ---Actually, he was sleeping. He was sleeping so well that all the appointments that he had in the morning did not happen.

He had speech therapy at 9:30am, but the therapist did not come. Plus, the shower that was supposed to come at 9:30 did not come and the physical therapy at 10am was changed to a later time because Hajime was sleeping and to the CNA that came to ask about the shower, we told them, later and he was sleeping until 11:30am.

As a continuation of yesterday, this morning, I injected a shot called Heparin, which is a medication to prevent bed sores.

Hajime was sleeping, but surprisingly, I was able to give him the shot without waking him up. I asked Hajime about it later and he said, “When did you do it?” Yeah~!

After he woke up, he kept watching the “Space battleship Yamato” DVD. I am truly thankful for aizmon, who sent me the DVD as soon as she read my blog. I want to show Hajime’s grin.

So the speech therapy happened at 2pm and the physical therapy at a little past 2:30pm. The afternoon became very busy after the schedule changed.

For physical therapy, the ventilator goes on the wheelchair, so we were explained by the RT about how to make it mobile.
After putting him on the wheelchair we went outside and enjoyed today’s awesome weather that we had again. The slight breeze felt really nice.
But because he had to use the restroom we returned to his room. After that we spent some time in the room with him on the wheelchair and continued watching the movie, “Yamato” again.

It was already dusk when he returned to his bed and the trach exchange that was supposed to happen, but delayed after delay finally happened past 7pm. Today my husband and I did it, but it was so scary!

Hajime was so nervous past the point that he had such a red face. Maybe because we were doing it, he was so nervous. My husband took off the tube and I put the new one in.

This time he didn’t bleed at all, it came off clean.

The tube that comes off is washed with soap so that it can be reused, sanitized with hot water and hang dried. The RT told us, “Good job!” so I was a little comforted.

Tonight was my husband’s turn to stay over but because Hajime said he wants to be alone, he told us to go home. So to respect Hajime’s wishes, although I didn’t want to, I went home with my husband.

Was he okay? I am very worried.


Translated by CS

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