UCSF Day 6: March19

It's amazing to me how slow the passage of minutes and hours but how quick the passage of days. Peter has been sick for over a month. Where did the time go? How did any of this happen- sometimes it feels so surreal. Yesterday, the doctors were talking about moving the ECMO catheters from his groin to his neck. This morning, his ventilator was down to 40% oxygen.....now talking about removing the circuit completely. Despite hearing that he tolerated lowering the flow, we both were worried that this meant they were giving up - when actually they were telling us he was doing better and they felt he could manage without the circuit. Peter went to OR at10:30 - it was almost four hours later that we learnedaf he was off of ECMO and managing with "just" the ventilator - on 60% Oxygen as well as nitrox. Nitrox is another therapy that became available to us because of the transfer to UCSF. Peter's BFF Dan got to see him for a few minutes tonight....definitely meant more to Dan than to Peter who was pretty heavily sedated after his bout in the operating room. I was SO glad the nursing staff told Art that today was a day he needed to be in SF - it was a long, scary day that was worth every minute....I keep telling mysel that a journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step. We made a big step today.