Learning to Breathe Again

Graham is still continuing to amaze the Doctors and Nurses and is doing AWESOME!  The poor guy doesn't feel like it though.  He feels he is failing at it and not progressing.  We keep telling him how well he is doing and how far ahead he is than what doctors predicted.  Swelling in his face is WAAAAAAAY down.  He is recognizable now and he is able to open his eyes.  Everything is really blurry, he says worse than if he were to not be wearing his glasses (his eyes are still a little swollen). But he can recognize us and waves to us as we garb up looking like Sponge Bob.
He is finally off all of his blood pressure meds and maintaining normal BP (I'm starting to learn more medical lingo).  Graham is also being weened off of his Ventilator...this is sooooo hard for him!  He wanted me by his side when they did this and I was way too happy to oblige, I really needed him at that moment too.  They moved his Vent Pressure down from 25 to 20 - what this means, at 25 the vent is doing all the work, when they start lowering the pressure, Graham is having to do more and more breathing by himself. So many emotions were going through Graham; he was nervous, anxious, and scared.  He had to really concentrate on learning to breathe all over again.  It has been decades since he has been able to fill his lungs with oxygen or take a deep breath and not cough afterwards.  With a lot of encouragement, silence, and concentration he began to figure it out.  I know I will never understand what he was going through, but I felt so bad for him.  But he did it!  After 6 minutes he was able to find a good pattern.  Inhaling was very difficult for him and he would get a little frustrated and I would need to remind him to breathe or that he was doing great.  After about 45 minutes, he could go longer without a slip up.  He still had to concentrate on inhale...exhale...inhale...exhale, but he was doing it.  I felt comfortable enough to leave for 30 minutes and when I came back Kristen told me that he even fell asleep and was breathing great!!!!
They continued to ween him throughout the day and every time they went down, he struggled.  The tubes are very irritating to him, he feels like there is mucus in his lungs and it's as if (well, he is) breathing through a straw.  Even though nothing is wrong, his numbers on the vent looked great - better than average, he felt like he should be breathing perfectly. His Respiratory Therapist didn't help either, he showed her his number 1 finger...some people just don't have bedside manner.  Don't be gruff with a patient, I almost jumped down her throat.  If she's back tomorrow, I'm asking for another!  But he did it!  By the end of the day, he had gone from 25 to 10 and was even aloud to rest.  I haven't seen him since 4:30, but can't really complain, I got to spend all day with him (that's a little against the rules, but to peas the patient!!!).  His anxiety is supposedly better (it was so bad they had to slow down the weening and it's also the reason they let me stay) and the plan is to move him to 5 really early tomorrow morning and then down to 0 mid morning so they can remove the vent early and he can have a good day!!! 
I'm so excited for him, he is continuing to be a rock star with VERY LITTLE complaining.  He had his first Physical Therapy today and he did well with it.  It was simple leg lifts and arm lifts, but he fought through them well.  Hopefully tomorrow they'll put him in a chair to sit!
Thank you all for your sweet messages, they really make me feel better.  Y'all are too sweet!  More later :) -Erin