There were some questions in the comments from yesterday, so I'll try to explain what's going on with the respirator.

Emily isn't on the respirator because of her lungs. So weaning her from the respirator isn't a function of getting her lungs stronger, it's a function of getting her and her brain comfortable breathing on her own again. When we first started the process of weaning her from the respirator, the therapists and nurses were trying a more "traditional" approach. Emily would get agitated - her heart rate would go way up and she'd start breathing too fast (kind of like hyperventilating). Sometimes she even needed a little sedation to calm down.

Yesterday we started on a new, much more gradual approach. The respirator is still on but instead of helping her breath she does the breathing and it gives her a little pulse of air periodically to help clean the CO2 from her lungs. In total she was on this new wean regimen for 9-1/2 hours yesterday and she went from pressure support of 15 down to 11. Slow, but steady, progress.

I met with one of the hospital's speech therapists yesterday and she walked me through the levels Emily is likely to go through in "waking up." Right now she's at a Level III - she responds to some, although not all, vocal instructions. She tends to respond to my voice better than the hospital staff, which isn't unusual, and she's refusing to stick out her tongue, which I personally believe is because she thinks it's a stupid thing for a total stranger to ask her to do. What we really need to work on now is getting her to communicate to us on simple things - like nodding her head if she can hear me.

Please feel free to include questions in your posts, and we'll try our best to answer them.