Keep Running! -Kim

It seems like a lot of things have been happening really fast for Kim this past day or so. She continued to build up the strength of her lungs, and has been getting rid of a lot of the excess fluid inside and around them. Later yesterday they removed the draining line from her side, because they weren't really getting any more fluid from it. (Don't you think 2600 CCs is enough?) And they decided that if she was still looking good, they would remove the breathing tube today, and put her back on a regular respirator. And, they decided to go for it. She's ended up handling it really well, and has been able to breathe on her own. She still has a lot of residual mucus that she's working up, and she still has to be on a constant oxygen flow, but she's very glad to have that tube out of her throat.
They still have the feeding tube going down into her intestines, but they've removed the suction line that ran to her stomach (the one that she coughed up a couple of days ago.) They probably would have left it in longer, but it stopped working, so they decided to just take it out. Since then, she's thrown up a few times a day... definitely not fun, but she's allowed to be on a clear-liquid diet. As soon as her stomach starts behaving, they will probably take her off the feeding tube as well.
Because she is still coming off of the sedatives, and working other drugs through her system, she's been pretty loopy again today, and really tired. They did get her out of the bed once, for physical therapy, but for the most part she's been sleepy all day. But, it's fun to be able to talk to her, a little bit. She's partially not used to being able to talk again, and partially doesn't like to because it kind of hurts her. Her vocal cords are still recovering, and she sounds pretty froggy. When her oncology doctor, Dr. Barnette, came to visit her again today, he told her that she should switch to filtered cigarettes. ;)
So, even though it's been a really rough day for Kim, it's been a day of lots of changes, that we can hopefully keep for the better. Her fever is still down, her swelling has gone down, and her color is getting better. I'm so glad, and I can't wait to see her continue to improve. Some of you might even hear from her in the next day or two, who knows? Hopefully it won't be too much longer before we can move back up to the ICS- and use cell phones! Anyway, thank you all- and lets keep praying for Kim's recovery!