{{{Cindy, Cindy's DH, his aunt}}}
Things are not good here. I am not being blunt in public, at all, but I don't think my dad is leaving the hospital. His attending and I went over his past couple of years of records together over the phone today (he is cagey about sharing health info and has been less than forthcoming with any of us); she knew he already has COPD but not the extent of it (his GP is in the city where he's hospitalized but the COPD specialist is here in San Francisco in a different hospital system--the records are shared, but only passively, so unless someone at one location knows to look for a specific record from the other it's not all immediately obvious to everyone), and neither of us knew that his last full PFT's over a year ago showed that his lungs were only at 31% of normal function.
She now thinks that if he's able to be extubated at all he will likely immediately need a trach, and that will likely be a permanent thing. And all of that is predicated on that first "if."