Tuesday, October 18th

Hi everyone and thanks for your support. We need it, believe me. Sorry I did not report last night, it was late and I was exhausted (of doing nothing but wait)

Augusto's condition is better today, we met with the doctor of respiratory system and he said his lungs were much better today. They disconnected him for a while and was breathing well by himself. We believe he hears us sometime and responds by moving something. By the way, this state is induced by PROPOFOL to keep him sedated.

On the other hand we learned that he also had a Liver laceration although classified as 1 of 4 levels. Therefore he is a little Jaundiced today, they say it is OK.

The other correction is that the Aorta did not have an aneurysm, but a "tear," a "rupture" due to the impact. This was the source of the bad internal bleeding along with the Spleen, etc. That has been stopped or almost stopped.

Today he is going into surgery. They will attempt to close his abdomen. He was left open because the two flaps do not meet to "zipper" at the center due to swelling. If they cannot close him, they will bandage again (By the way, something called "The Bogota" patch, for being first done there)

The other procedure is to work on the Pelvis and see what is needed. He has two fractures and is open as pair of wings. Vertically, all the parts are aligned which is good news.

The Aorta repair will have to wait a few days but it has been planned.  His blood pressure is been kept steadily at 100/50 and maintaining it well.

Karla is improving, I just saw her walking with a therapist. She is improving in general but the surgery for the eye-socket repair will wait for swelling to reduce. There seems not to require surgery for her Pelvic fracture. The kids are well and went back to school today. There is a lot of support from friends and neighbors.

As a description of the attention and service he gets in this wonderful Trauma Center, I'll tell you that he has:

• Seven computer screens monitoring hundreds of functions.
• One man-nurse, 24 X 7 standing in front of the monitors every minute of the day
• One Chief-Nurse, a lady-nurse, literally breathing behind the neck of the poor guy monitoring Augusto.
• He has seven bags containing something and dripping into his system
• Two separate automatic systems monitoring his blood pressure
• He has one tube draining the left lung, one for the right lung, one drain for urine, and one drain for the abdomen.  He has one drain tube into his stomach to keep it empty and clean while they feed him through another tube into his nose and pass the stomach into the intestines. He has an IV inserted through his shoulder area into the superior Cava vein and directly into his right Atrium.
• Automatic pressure-pulsing on both lower legs and feet.
• His ICU cublicle is maintained at 0.010 inches water pressure to prevent any outside air to move into the room

Do not have to tell you all of this looks impressive.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, please continue and I will keep reporting.
Kiko