Monday Smonday, Terrific Tuesday

We had a heck of a rough day, but some light at the end of the tunnel. Hope unfortunately was not doing well most of Sunday and Monday, vomiting throughout. It was the toughest time so far for me, and I'm sure she was feeling just a bit worse then I was. I mentioned before the vomiting is especially bad for her recovery. By the end of Monday when her main surgeon came by around 5:30 PM, he had had enough. He took her off the respirator, changed her pain meds so that she now does not have a constant drip and now has a button she can push herself when she needs more meds instead of all the time. Overnight she got sick again but only once. This morning they moved her to be vertical for the first time. While she feels nauseous, she has not thrown up this morning. I'm sure some of the nausea is do to being vertical for the first time in 5 days. She has had no problems breathing since being off the respirator which is great.

He also said despite her other tough symptoms, her surgery was looking good. Her unbelievable neck and leg scars were doing well, and she can start moving her head around a bit now too for the first time. I think all of the improvements I had anticipated would happen on Monday will happen today. She is starting to remember some things so I think the change in meds is sobering her up. Instead of Dazed and Confused high I think she's now Strange Brew drunk. She does not wake up confused anymore or scared.

She now has control of her own pain med for about the last 15 hours and has only pressed the buttom three times (according to her) overnight. That means the pain from the surgical areas is not too bad right now. Over the last 3 days every time I tell her something she doesn't remember, and most of the time when I tried to talk to her she didn't want me to talk at all. Even when it was about our kids, she just couldn't concentrate and listen or understand I think. Thank goodness for me I've had special training through my teen years on how to handle rejection from women (well not training as much as experience).

This is going to be very disjointed because things keep happening today. They just had the occupational and physcial therapists here and that went great. She sat up for the first time, stood up, and took a few baby steps before she sat down in a chair. She's in the chair now with much wires now, so instead of looking like she's in a bowl of spaghetti she's more like a hammock. One of the docs also came by and said they'll replace her trach probably later today. They'll give her a smaller one that when her tongue is ready she'll be able to talk through. We may end up going home with the trach.

Her bowels are still not working correctly, probably due to the extensive vomiting. Now that has hopefully stopped, they're hoping with time they will fix themselves. They took an X-ray to see how things look down there, but no report back yet. Until that clears up they still can't use the feeding tube, but that's really our only set back right now. They are even talking about looking for a regular room for us to move into later today or tomorrow. She is still swollen, kind of looks like Peter Griffin on Family Guy but with time hers will go away.

Speaking of Family Guy, with the exception of maybe the Office is there a finer comedy on TV? I don't get to watch much anymore with our crazy schedules, but what could be better then a drunk uncaring dad, talking dog in love with his master's wife, monkey that lives in the kid's closet, pedophile old man that whistles when he talks, sex-starved neighbor, always pregnant but never has any kids other neighbor with a husband in a wheel chair, kids that are dumb as a brick, one is probably a girl but you're never quite sure, and the youngest wants to kill his mom and take over the world. If that's not great comedy I don't know what is anymore.

Now most of your are probably wondering even more about how I'm handling the Celtics game 4 loss, FSU's elimination from the College World Series, and the Red Sox loss to the Phillies yesterday. Well the Celts, they had another almost amazing comeback but in the end decided to give their fans what they deserve by winning at home in Boston tonight. The Red Sox wanted to give the Phillies some confidence, and give everyone else a glimmering hope before they run away with the season. As for FSU, even having the best player in the country with Buster Posey was not enough. We seems to always make the Series but always choke it away. We had two runners on base, down by two in the 9th and couldn't pull the trigger. We tied an NCAA record for the most runners left on base in one game. The Celts will bring it home tonight and I'll be bringing Hope home before you know it. Thanks to all of you, and please do leave us comments if you're reading this because I appreciate them and I know Hope will want to see all of this when she's up to it.