More Improvements!

Kim is sleeping right now, so I am going to post a quick update while I am thinking about it! So much has been happening, even since my post last night. Kim is continuing to do better, and I can't tell you how happy we are.
This morning the doctors decided that she could come off of the blood pressure monitor, so the sensor that was in her wrist is now gone and her hands are totally needle free! She also was able to come off of her catheter, and she moved into a reclining chair for part of the day. Best of all, she's been doing great with her breathing, and so just about an hour ago, they took her off of her "high-flow" respirator and now have her on just a regular oxygen flow. They are going to move her feeding tube to her stomach, and keep her on that until she has more of her strengh back, but they've taken her off of the clear-liquids diet and said that she can eat whatever she feels comfortable with. They count her calories, and they will make up the difference at night through the feeding tube. Luckily, she hasn't thrown up yet today, so she seems to be doing well with it. They are also probably going to take the PICC line out of her arm in a day or so, since she has so few (comparatively) IV fluids they have to give her now.
Her fever is still down- dare I even say gone now? She's looking great- no longer puffy, though she's skinnier than ever, and her color is good. Her ANC wobbled between 0 and 100 for a day or two, they stayed at 100, and as of today is up to 200. They were worried that high white blood cells could cause her to feel really sick, if they were to start flooding the areas she had the infection, but so far it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. Hopefully this is because her infection is gone now, but it's hard for them to tell. They are still giving her most of the anti-biotics and keeping an eye on her.
As far as awareness goes, she's still very tired, and when she is awake, she's still loopy. They are still giving her pain meds, and plenty of other things that make her tired. It will probably be a while before she's off of all that- they are going to put her through a whole rehabilitation cycle to get her weaned from the narcotics, so she doesn't react badly to coming off of them. Our little druggie :)
At this point, with just the IVs, regular oxygen flow and feeding tube being the only special machine-related things she has going on, and some regular vitals monitors that she usually has upstairs anyway, they will keep her here for another day or two, and if she's still looking good, then she can go back up to the ImmunoCompromised Services unit. Yay!
Though she has been asleep most of the day, even in her reclining chair, she did wake up for a little bit to drink some broth and juice, and she talked for a while to mom, dad and me. She knows where she is, and sort of what she's been through, and she knows she's crazy right now (she sang the "I'm a nut" girls camp song for us) so she's not as bad as she has been, but she still rambled about a lot of different things. For just a little while she got emotional, and told us that she felt so sorry, and bad for us- that we'd had to go through all of this with her, and we didn't even get to be sedated like she was. She said it's better to be sedated. She remembered coming out of it, towards the end, and she said it was hard- that she just wanted them to put her back to sleep, but she knew she had to wake up and start working on getting better. But after we all cried a little bit, and told her that we love her so much and we're just so glad she's getting better, she cheered up and started telling us funny stories. Like how she was throwing up all through the movie Ice Age, and how she'll never be able to watch the show again, and in fact, she hates it so much that she'd like to tear it into little pieces, and set it on fire, and throw it off a cliff, and when the forest rangers came to yell at her for hurting the forest, she would tell them that they just don't understand! Oh, you probably had to be there, but I was laughing so hard, I thought I'd crack a rib. Not long after that she zonked out again, and is now sleeping peacefully...