Only Hope

Only my Hope can do these kinds of things. To step back a moment please see my blog yesterday that Hope for the first time yesterday sat upright, then got up, then took about 3 baby steps to an adjacent chair doing a penguin walk. Because she was doing so well and a big trauma was coming in (I hope it was more because of the first one) they moved us late yesterday into a real room. It was late and all we did was get settled in before I ran out to grab some food before the big game (woo-hoo! sorry those will probably keep slipping out while I write this thinking about last night's game). Hope asked me to stay in her room which I couldn't do in ICU and I asked are you sure? Not that I didn't want to but she knew the game was last night. She said yes and that she would simply sleep while I watched the game.

That last about 4 minutes into the game before she gave me the heave-ho. It took 4 minutes because I was cursing our TV for the first three minutes because it was in Spanish. If you've never watched an NBA game in Spanish, this is what it's like (and it took 3 years of high school Spanish for me to understand this much):

jflkasjflagialhgiuofahy Garnett fjla;jflidsajfkl;ajklfdj Kobe jifoajdlk;fajl championes de mundo afjkld;ajfkladjflkdasjklf Pierce fjkladsjflkasjfldjasl;f dos e cero jali;gujioauflajfdslkjnklasnm Rivers.

After that I got it back to English. So I ended up watching the game at Chili's via Hope's heave-ho with my new Laker friends that left before the game was even over (in hindsight they may not have liked me that much during the game). I was very complimentary on that one, and only one, good play they had last night. Woo-hoo! So I got back to the room late watching all the post-game stuff (woo-hoo again!) and fell asleep right away. They were good enough to give me a cot instead of sleeping on those painful chairs that sort of lay back. I have spent so many nights on those things and never slept well on one. You wake up like a pretzel feeling like Rocky at the beginning of Rocky V in the locker room, just shaking and you can't believe what just happened to your body. For the record, that was actually a reference to Rocky IV because the fight was from that movie and because Rocky V in my world (and you guys should come try to visit my world some day --- instead of looking at things through rose-colored glasses I look through color blind glasses) never existed.

So I'm not sure what time it was, but if felt like 8 seconds after I laid down I wake up to suddenly Darth Vader falling onto the end of my cot. Turned out it was not Darth Vader at all, but Hope getting up herself, breathing heavily through her trach, unplugging the coat rack on wheels with all of her drugs, dragging the catheder and pee bag behind her, pulled out her IV, and was determined she needed to go to the bathroom. Now, she got up on the opposite side of her bed and then walked (and when I say walked this was her first time walking mind you) all the way around the bed and got to the end of my cot.

I immediately sprang up to help her and get her back in bed. Instead she pushed me away and somehow made her way into the bathroom unassisted. She tried to sit on the toilet, and becuase of the catheder and pee bag still dragging behind, she could not sit on it. She then started to walk into the shower where they had a portable toilet with handrails. She could not get into the shower so she then motioned for me to pull it out for her. By this point I lost it, and started to calmy say things similar to the Spanish I wrote above, what the f^*&(^^*^&*^*%$*%&^&*%^&*&*(& do you think you're doing!!! You could set yourself back days by falling and hurting any or multiple parts of your body. I calmy explained that she has a catheder and that she had to get back to bed. Of course she can't talk, but I think I literally saw a lightbulb go off in her head and I started to help her back to bed.

Apparently my calm demeanor may not have been as quiet through the wall and closed door to the room all the way to the nurses station about 20 paces away, because our 8.5 month pregnant nurse came running in and helped her back to bed. The uber big nurse (I know that's not polite but I was raised poorly and you would not believe how big she is --- please do not give her this blog address but the story is not complete without envisioning her running into the room) probably should not have been doing this type of thing in her condition, but she was a champ. I was so worked up after she spent about 5 seconds helping Hope, she asked if I was okay and offered me Hope's IV with the anit-anxiety drugs (I don't think she was kidding). If I was closer I probably would have poked a hole in the bag at the top of the coat rack and started drinking it like a keg stand. (Mom if you're reading this I have no idea what a keg stand is, I just said that to sound cool. No wait, I do know what a keg stand is but only because I followed Kurt to parties after I finished all my homework and bible verses to protect him as a big brother).

So if anyone doubted Hope's resolve to get something done when she puts her mind to it, don't ever do that. She's like Forrest Gump trying to shrimp when she puts her mind to something. I learned a long time ago when her mind is made up, back off or help. After I recovered from her ordeal, and I had to recover not her, the docs did come in and switch our her trach. She can now talk through it once her tongue is ready. I'm exhausted from recovering from her ordeal today so that's all I got for now.

A quick thanks to Hopes' dad for reminding me FSU just won their third straight track national championship (because we're a track school, not baseball, football, basketball, air hockey, paddleball, etc.) and to Jon Lester by throwing a shut out against the most potent offense in baseball in the Phillies so that the Red Sox and FSU are still winners restoring order to my universe. I've already got Nathan training for the prestigious air hockey scholarship at FSU so he can be a campus legend like I am. Nobody, and I mean nobody ever in the history of that campus was rejected more often then me by women those first two years I was up there and Hope was still in Melbourne. When she does get better and reads this, somebody please show me how to edit these blog things. Only Hope, and she's on her way to a full recovery.