One More Move

Daddy's eyes were very alert today. He still nods off quite a bit. He really liked his nurse for the last two days, Steve. He was more talkative today--especially when we needed to leave, much to Jaron's chagrin. :) We talked about some of the milestones for graduating from UPMC (3 hours of sustained rehab activity) and going home to WV (driving and stairs) and Daddy is being diligent about practicing his physical therapy exercises throughout the day.

This morning he was able to swallow some water in addition to the successful Pudding Ceremony last night. They want to make sure he is swallowing correctly though, and ensure that nothing is going in to his lungs, so the doctor ordered a swallow test for tomorrow. This will entail some more precise way of observing his swallowing radiologically. So in Dddy's words, hopefully he'll be able to "take up drinking" in the next couple of days. Apparently one of the gauges of his swallowing ability is his voice, which is still very weak and sometimes requires a couple of tries. So we've encouraged him to oractice talking some more even when we're not around. This is all a result of him having been intubated for such a long time.

Jaron & I passed our VAD training today. The only other thing we will specifically need to learn is how to change the sterile dressing on the site where the drive line comes out of his skin. That will need to be done weekly after discharge.

Daddy did finally move to a private room. Email Julie it you would like the address in order to send him something. He said that he likes his room & he likes his nurses. They see how tired he is from not being able to sleep in ICU, so are going to make sure he can get some good sleep. I relayed his preference of having the door closed.