progress

Today was a really good day with a great big step in the right direction.  My mom and I have been taking turns going to the hospital and today was my day.  I got to dad's room early in the afternoon and he was awake but still on the ventilator.  His nurse told me that they were waiting for the doctor and then they would take the breathing tubes out. 

This particular nurse is one of our favorites and I had some good phone conversations with him while I was still in North Carolina.  Anyway, I was somewhat amused by his obvious impatience with the doctor!  Well, he soon cornered the doctor and I was kicked out for quite awhile.  When I returned the breathing tubes were gone and he was only using a breathing mask.  This mask provided him with moist air as his throat and vocal cords would be sore for awhile.

For the next couple of hours he was on this mask and he could have ice chips.  His voice was very raspy and even though he tried to talk a little it was very hard to understand him.  Later they took the mask away and he was put on oxygen with just the nasal prongs.  Then we could understand him a little better and his voice was coming back a bit more. 

Soon his gourmet supper arrived - juice and blue jello!  I know my dad well enough to know that jello of any kind would not be appealing.  However, we joked that because Papa had blue jello that the kids would be wanting blue jello and he agreed with that!  He ate some of the jello but was more interested in the juice and kept asking for ice water. 

He had been completely sedated for an entire week and so he is still very weak and it is going to take quite some time for him to get strength back, but today was a huge step in the right direction.  And I when I was about to leave I said "I Love You Papa" and then I heard the 5 most wonderful words ever "I Love You Too Sweetheart".   Precious, precious words indeed!