Unbelievable!

It’s truly amazing! Amber is fully awake, extubated, and breathing on her own! She is talking and is also very surprised at her rapid progress. They may get her up tonight and into a chair. She is having some pain, but that’s not a surprise.

We were told that the recovery process here will be swift, but it’s really hard to take in how swift this is going. She just came out of surgery this morning! Compared to being in an induced coma for weeks, at MGH, this is almost incomprehensible. Even while Amber was on the vent today, she was reportedly calm and waving at the nurses. Here at Duke, removing the breathing tube and letting Amber breathe for the first time on her new lungs seemed to be a matter of procedure. During her last transplant, the buildup to extubation (drum roll please) was tantamount to an unveiling or a birth, after having to wait for what seemed a dreaded forever, coming in and out of consciousness, experiencing ICU psychosis and being in a totally isolated glass-walled room that only nurses and doctors could enter once they were gloved, masked and gowned up. Not here! The procedures and expectations are completely different. I don’t think she’ll be jogging by the end of the week, but hey, prove me wrong!

More tomorrow.
Love, Susie