FEBRUARY 9, 2020
“It’s hard to imagine someone can endure all of this.” Words spoken by Jon’s doctors...clearly they don’t know Jon.
Today they’ve reduced Jon’s blood pressure medicine. Previously he was on Norepinephrine, Epinephrine, and Vasopressin to keep his blood pressure up. His heart seems to be keeping up as his blood pressure no longer drops when performing fluid pulls, as a result he is only on .03 of Epinephrine versus his .06 dose of yesterday and they took him off of the Norepinephrine and Vasopressin all together. Jon is looking around more which is a great sign but his team isn’t sure how much, if any, he is comprehending. In addition, they are not sure if he has any muscle control at the moment. Although his steroids have been helping with his blood pressure, they are also damaging his muscle over time...ahem, not OK. Jon is a certified, Grade A beefcake. I never knew you could have muscles in your neck until I met Jon. Clearly the steroids could do a lot of damage to someone as muscular as Jon so we’re happy about his increased blood pressure and the reduction of his steroids.
Jon has a collapsed lung, it seems we have been told this in the past but none of us recall that moment (can’t imagine why?). He currently has a small chest tube and received a larger chest tube this morning to help evacuate the air collecting in his lungs. They clamped the smaller chest tube and performed a chest x-ray today to see if they can remove it, obviously the less foreign objects in his body the better. We’ll know whether the small tube can be removed or not tomorrow.
They will most likely perform a tracheotomy tomorrow also (an incision in the windpipe in order to relieve an obstruction of breathing). Although we can’t be confident, but if Jon is aware of what is going on, this will be much more comfortable for him.
There are life support machines Jon is currently relying on that have a limited time span due to arterial complications which he’s already had; nerve damage and surgical amputations. They do have a “Plan B” when it comes to his Ecmo however; Ecmo VV. He is currently on Ecmo VA which offers both lung and heart support. Ecmo VV offers only lung support. If (and of course they made sure we knew it was a big, capital, neon-lighted “IF”) Jon’s heart recovers enough, they would be able to step him down to the Ecmo VV and buy him some additional time. Other limited lifespan machines that Jon is relying upon are a big question mark for his team. Quite frankly, no one has ever pushed the limits of these machines before. No one has ever made it this far.
In an effort to be measured and not offer false hope, Jon’s doctors want make sure the family is aware that Jon is in a very “dark place” and his overall prognosis is grim. But with that being said, they are determined to keep going “until something gets worse or better”. They did say they’ve seen young people turn around and make a full recovery from grim situations but to be clear, no one has made a full recovery from the depths at which Jon currently finds himself. But on the flip side; Jon has and is currently beating all odds, all precedences, all pre-conceived notions this # 1 California hospital has ever set.
At the end of today’s update Megan showed Jon’s team a picture of Jon, our Jon, the Jon we know and love. Jon’s team of doctors are performing miracles every moment of every day they work on him, we are aware and ever-so thankful for that. But it’s easy to get lost in the medicinal side of things, to lose one‘s self in saving this human and not stopping to see WHO this human really is. Well, to make it clear who Jon is, let everyone know this...
There is nothing in this world that Jon can’t conquer. He is literally the “Jack of all trades”, the smartest, funniest, most caring human. Ask him a question, he’ll answer it then tell you the research behind it. Ask him for a favor, he’ll be first first one to show up. Tell him your troubles, he’ll do his best to solve them then research how to prevent them in the future. Give him your ideas, he’ll engineer a way to make them a reality. Tell him a mundane story, he’ll make it side-splittingly hilarious. Give him a challenge, he’ll make it his bitch. And guess what STSS, you’re his next bitch...
#effSTSS
#WatsonNation