Josh has had a very good week. The team at Polytrauma have been working on capping trials with Josh throughout the week. This basically means that they plug the hole in Josh's trache to force Josh to breathe through his nose and mouth. They started with capping the trache for a few hours at a time and worked up to a 24 hour trial. Josh did great! The team will continue leaving Josh's trache capped for longer and longer periods of time. If Josh continues to do well, the trache will be removed and they will begin trying to get Josh on solid food. This is a big deal because it not only represents progress, but the removal of the trache with make Josh much less susceptible to pneumonia going for

Last week we shared some really big news. Josh's status was upgraded from "vegitative" to "minimally conscious". We are elated and know that you all are too! I want to add to that good news. On Tuesday they started "capping trials" where they began capping his trache. On the first day the doctor said, "let's try for 15 min and see how he does." Three hours later he was still capped. The next day it was 7 hours, followed again by 10, then 11 hours. Today we are shooting for 14! The staff will consider 24 and 48 hour trials next week. If he passes those trials, the trache will be removed! Josh continues to move his hands and feet more and more. He is making more and more sounds. He also had an

Day 108: We received some good news this morning regarding Josh's recovery! When Josh was in Colorado in the ICU, the best way to gauge his progress was on the Glascow Coma Scale. Since his arrival in San Antonio there have been a number of other methods for gauging Josh's recovery now that the focus is on rehabilitation and less on trauma. For the last 108 days, Josh has been considered to be in a 'vegetative' state. This morning we received news that this definition is no longer suitable for him. Josh is now considered to be in a 'minimally conscious' state! Josh's physical therapy team felt like they had seen enough out of Josh for an upgrade! The progress this week has been focused aroun

This week before all the cold weather moved in Kelly and I had a chance to take Josh outside into the courtyard for some fresh air and sunshine. Though he has been outside a couple of times since his accident, this was the first time Kelly and I were "un-assisted" by hospital staff. The courtyard is a fairly small area tucked in between several buildings. We decided to move around the corner so Josh could have a clear view of the sky. That's when we realized he hadn't been in the daylight in a while so Kelly ran to the truck to get Joah's sunglasses. I took this picture of the two of them on our field trip. Over the past 3+ months I have had a chance to witness something that my mind has alw

Day 97: Josh continues to be pneumonia free and will finish his current round of antibiotics soon. The next test will be to see how he does once the antibiotics are out of his system. The most exciting part about being pneumonia free is that Josh continues to be able to get out of bed (in a motorized wheelchair) and participate in PT! As I try and depict Josh's situation to people that cannot be there to see him, I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who reads this blog. When I think of someone being in a coma, my mind is taken to TV shows like Scrubs or Grey's Anatomy where they show a patient peacefully laying in bed sleeping. That is not the situation with Josh. Josh's eyes are open