Laughter: the best medicine..

So tonight during the last part of visiting hours dad was rolled again, and it hurts me seeing him in so much pain when they roll him or move him. He wakes up and seems to be searching for help and I just want to help take that away, but the only thing we can do is give words of support and hold his hand and let him know we’re here for him. I just wish I could take the pain away, I would say I wish it was me instead of him, but we all know I’m way to much of a wimp to take any of that pain, but it’s a good thought. As we were getting ready to leave for the evening we noticed a little extra urine in the catheter which is awesome! It wasn’t much, but as I said early any sort of gain big or small is a step in the right direction! They lowered his PEEP levels which deals with pressure in his lungs on the vent down to a normal level which is another step and they may potentially start a process of letting him breathe more on his own rather than 50% machine help.

 
I made the great purchase of a body pillow tonight to help with the “sleep.” I’m pretty exhausted so I don’t think it will be a big problem but it is past 1 am and I’m still not ready for bed. I feel like I’m in Alaska with the constant day light, but it’s certainly not as pretty in here. We’ve been bribing the nurses with our selection of food and I shared my birthday cake (They’re lucky it wasn’t Girl Scout cookies) with them under the conditions that they’d wish me a happy b-day. My sister attempting to be the overachiever she is used a pizza to bribe under the condition that they take extra good care of my dad.  She being a girl should realize that chocolate cake is the way to a woman’s heart not a greasy pizza.  (I win again sister)

I think we’ve officially broken every rule of the waiting room. We have definitely had kids under 13 in the room and we have live flowers (I’m considering myself a flower, one of those ones that stink pretty bad but look awesome!!). There is also a “Recommendation” that tells us to store all personal items in the lockers, why would we put in a locker? That’s way too far away. We have the tv problem solved tonight as well. Last night we are all too lazy to get up and turn it down and/or change the channel, so we bought a remote and it works beautifully. It will also throw off the guy who attempts to change the channel on us again and we turn the tv off on him for his attempt to take over our room.

Wednesday

 The good news about today so far at 5:30 in the morning is that the remote was a great purchase and the body pillow follows suit just as well. The thing that wasn’t so nice last night was Darth Vader in our room (guy with sleep apnea machine which had an strangely annoying hum to it) and methane coming out (good thing he was far away) all night. There was lady that sounded like she was a team of tree loggers with high powered chainsaws who were sent to log all the national parks in Arkansas. Lastly, the feeling of my skin after I tried to reposition myself after it’s decided to become one with the cheap leather chairs. Other good news is that my spine is still out of line from sleeping the day before, so it wasn’t nearly as shocked when I slept on it funny again.

Now let’s hope for some good news with pops!

We haven’t had many gains so far today but he is maintaining his progress from yesterday. They are attempting to wean him off of a lot of his medicine so his immune system is going to be working a little harder. His blood pressure meds are all off so he’s keeping a good pressure all on his own. His platelet levels were a little low along with his blood level.  The low blood levels could be due to the dialysis. We’ve been talking about it, and a lot of people are going to donate blood. If you know my dad, you know that he loves a good deal and uses coupons all the time. So in honor of him we’re getting what’s called a “blood coupon” if we give blood we get a pint for free. I’m not allowed to give blood because of my trips out of the country (which may be good, so I won’t pass out). We had some family friends from Forrest City come visit us today and dad was able to open his eyes and see them for a bit. My grandma is also getting a lot more comfortable around the whole ICU mess (poles, tubes and other junk) and she was talking to my dad and was whispering to him, as she was talking to her he lifted up his right arm as if he was reaching to hold her hand. It’s simple things like that, that are reassuring and shows us the gentle giant is still in there and fighting strong.

Dad is doing dialysis again today, and their working on putting in a central line which is a more accurate means of giving meds. They’ve taken out one of the lines in his femoral artery because it’s been in there too long and they don’t want any infection. His blood pressure has been dropping on dialysis so they did start him back up on one of his meds to help regulate it.  He’s tolerating the feedings well, they started slow but now it’s up to where they want it to be and he has had no problems thus far. We’re all kind of sad that our main doctors and nurses are all going to be off for the next few days and I’m going to have to start my bribing wars with my sister all over again.

He has been a little more responsive today, and definitely seems to know we’re here, but he has trouble keeping is eyes open for long. I bought him a stuffed animal (manly of course) and we call it Moondog-  in honor of his beloved Cavs.  Hopefully he’ll remember that I did something nice and gave it to him.

We continue to decorate his room and we’re adding pictures to the wall which have been painted by Courtney’s children (Dads step grandkids).  Riley (6 years old) wrote a little note for dad and I thought I’d share it – “I hope you get feeling better papa, and get to go home one day. I love you and miss you to. I want to see you again. I was really sad win you got in the ambalance the day before yesterday. Please come home. I love you so so so much!”

We just spoke to one of our doctors and he was very pleased with the way dad looks. He said he’s done well in the past 24 hours and that’s great news for us! The awesome amazing incredible nurse Denise (I’m sucking up because she’s going to be reading) is taking great care of him, and is somehow putting up with us. Dialysis seemed to go pretty well other than his blood pressure dropping a little but the meds did their job.  Weaning him off his meds is going fairly well and we’re making gains. The doctors and therapist feel like if the pressures stay up then they’re going to decrease the sedation and try to see how much he can do on his own.

Dad is starting to respond more when people leave the room by waiving with his foot, it’s kind of humorous and he’s going to kill us for it but we’ve all been sharing funny stories about things he’s done in the past that are ridiculous and hilarious. I’ve considered sharing some of those stories with you, but I’ll leave everyone in anticipation for it and maybe I’ll share.

Sorry this post is quite different than the rest, it may be the fatigue setting in, but I think laughter is one of the best medicines so I’m trying to bring some humor to the room, and I can definitely see him rolling his eyes at me at saying “o brother.”