Sunday 5th June- Withdrawing the anaestheic

At 7pm Sunday evening, my parents flew in from overseas. I am so grateful to my sister and brother in law for organizing their flights and i was stoked to see them. I still feel bad that they missed out on their 40th wedding anniversary cruise and I hope they can rebook it once things settle down.
That same day, they started reducing Max's anesthetic so that he would wake up the next day. He was also on a cooling/warming mat that was keeping his body at a chilly 33degrees- this is neural protective apparently. The nurses were gradually warming him up so that he'd be back to 37 degrees within 24 hours. This was a really slow process, only half a degree every 4 hours because people get pissed off if they are warmed too quickly. His platelets were still low and weren't responding to treatment. At this stage however, we weren't too fussed. It was his brain that mattered.
When Monday came around we sat with Max patiently waiting for him to wake up. We could see his eyes fluttering underneath his eyelids and every so often a limb would twitch. Thankfully, this time the twitches were innocent and not seizures. I was scared of Max waking up. Every doctor kept saying "we'll know more [about brain damage] when he wakes up" so it was easier when he was in the coma to pretend that everything was ok. It turned out that coming out of a coma was nothing like on TV. His eyes opened a millimeter or so every few hours and even when they were fully open late Tuesday evening he was so sedated that he wasn't really with it for several more days. This was one of the hardest moments of his time in ICU because it was now that it was apparent that he had a facial droop.