Day Fifteen Part Two

7:30

I just looked up at the clock and the thought ran through my head that this time two weeks ago I didn't know what I would find when I reached Cleveland Regional in Shelby. I am so thankful to be sitting here in this hospital beside my husband that is in the hospital bed. What a blessing! Don had a relatively busy day. He had some visitors this morning along with all the doctors who came by to check on him his first day out of ICU. For lunch He ate a few bites from a turkey sandwich and ate most of his fruit. He has probably drunk a gallon of liquid today. During lunch they arrived with his air mattress for his bed. He was so thankful. He told the nurse supervisor that he was taking that bed home with him. After lunch (about 1:00) he was really tired so he cat napped until PT came in around 4:00. They tried to have Don sit up again by himself today without any type of support and he just wasn't able to do it. He cat napped again until our dinner was brought to us by one of our coworkers from school (East Lincoln Middle). Some of our staff prepared a meal for us and it was so delicious. Don wasn't very hungry so he just nibbled a little and went right back to sleep. A big thank you to everyone for providing the meal for us. That was absolutely wonderful. As most of you know, Don is the cook around our house and since I found out in September that I am a type 2 diabetic, he has also been my personal nutritionist. It was so good to eat a home cooked meal! Thank you all so very much! We also received cards from another one of our classes today. The art class sent cards on Tuesday. I have hung all the cards I have on the walls in his room. I am going to go home for a few hours tomorrow and I will pick up the other cards we took home when he went to ICU. We even have a tree for his room that one of our teachers made for him. Please just keep praying. He is doing so much better!!

Day Fifteen

9:30 AM

Don was moved to a regular room on the Trauma floor last night. He still has a low temperature. He is still has 1 I V bag. They had two I V machines hooked up to him when he was in ICU. He is still on 3 liters of oxygen and pulse/oxygen sensor. He did not sleep much at all last night. He is very tired and tries to sleep but he just can't. This is probably still the NMS. He is talking a lot more but not everything is reality. As I mentioned yesterday, he remembers more about the whole ICU ordeal than I had hoped he would. He gets things mixed up - 2 separate incidents and puts pieces of each together and swears up and down it happened. He broke down last night and began to cry and talk about how horrible it was to lay over there and all he wanted was a drink of water and no one would get it for him. He also remembers being tied down (to keep him from pulling his tubes out - although he still managed to do that) and how bad that made him feel. Don very seldom cries and when he does you know that it really means something to him - good or not so good. He didn't get any additional pain meds during the night - just his schedule Loritab. He is still really swelled from the waist down and has lost most of his arm muscles - another side affect of the NMS (the NMS began to break down his muscle tissues and that is why he is having trouble with his kidneys). He is suffering from the hiccups quite a bit again. He is still on a liquid diet but he is so thankful for the food and drink he is getting. Please keep praying!!