I finally talked to some doctors and got a bit more information. As I currently understand it, they are undecided as to how to wake Julia up. The problem is when she comes out of anesthesia with the breathing tube in, she will gag and jerk around (like you normally do), but that is a big problem because of how delicate her neck is. So they... don't want her to do that. It seems like what they're going to do is switch out her current breathing tube with a more durable / more easily cleaned breathing tube on Monday. That will be done in the OR, and they will just deepen her current sedation. I guess at that point we will meet to discuss how we can wake her up without hurting her neck. And the ICU resident doctor I spoke with today said she'll be in the halo "at least" 3 months. So that's quite a bit longer than the original 4-6 weeks. They will also do another CT scan on Monday to check on everything (we're hoping there is no noticeable increase in the cancer - that's the biggest deal right now). But it seems they might be keeping her sedated a bit longer to let her neck heal. I don't have any time frame yet. They say her vitals remain steady and she's comfortable.
(I also spoke with the neurosurgeon today, and he said the plan IS to wake her up on Monday, or at least try to. And if she "doesn't handle it well" they will give her a new tube and come up with a different plan. But the resident doctor said that was old information and wasn't the plan any longer as of this morning... so a bit of mixed information.)
