Day 11 - January 1, 2013

(Today is brought to you by Aubrey)

I am writing this a day late, so I hope that I do not leave out any of the exciting details that yesterday brought us. When we arrived in the morning, dad was wide awake. His eyes were open, he was moving all over the place and was fighting to sit up. We were surprised to see dad so active, because he tried pulling his trach out the night before.

Nathan and I were in the room with dad trying to keep him calm. Angie, his nurse said that she was surprised at how well he was responding to us (because he had done nothing but fight her all morning). She said that she was seeing some "intentional movements" from dad. When asked to clarify, she said that dad has been putting his hands and arms up and pushing against her when she tries to adjust him or get him to lay down. She said that his movements are not "accidental" but that he really did not want to be bothered by her.

Dad's eyes were very alert. He would look to the door when someone came in, he would move his head and his eyes toward us when we spoke with him. I was on dad's left side holding his hands. He started to squeeze pretty hard. I told him that this made me happy to see him moving so much. Dad turned his head, moved his eyes and looked right me. I smiled and said, "Dad, if you can hear me I would love for you to squeeze my hand." AND HE DID! I was so excited! I asked dad again, "Dad, can you squeeze my hand so that I know that the last squeeze was not an accident?" He looked me square in the face and squeezed again!  He did this a total of three or four times!!  I cannot express my excitement at this progress!

Nathan grabbed dad's hand and Dad responded by shaking Nathan's hand. Nathan was shocked, "Did Clarence really just shake my hand?" There were many times that dad continued to try to sit up. Nathan had to be forceful with dad and push his shoulder and head down. How did dad respond? He grabbed Nathan's arm and pushed Nathan off of him. Even in dad's semi-sedated state he was too strong for Nathan.

Because he was so active the doctor ordered that my dad be sedated. We were frustrated with this but ultimately we need to make sure that dad is safe. The doctor assured us that this was the only option to keep the trach and dad safe.

Later in the day, Uncle Tim, Aunt Deb, Whitney and Kyle came in to see dad. The sedation had worn off and dad was awake again. Again, dad started following commands "Clarence, squeeze my hand." He did this for several people. When Kyle walked in, I am told that dad looked at him and shook Kyle's hand.

In the midst of the celebration there were some struggles with the nurses and the doctors. We were so excited to see dad awake and we desperately want to see dad make more progress, however the nurses were ordered to keep dad still. Which meant that they had put him on a sedative that we had been fighting to keep him off from. The purpose of this was to keep dad from getting so agitated that he would not hurt himself. We appreciate that they want to keep dad safe BUT at the same time, it felt like we were going backwards in his progress.

I am excited to see dad wake up and I am excited to see what the next day holds.