Day 14 - January 4, 2013

(Brought to you by Aubrey)

What a crazy exciting day.

I walked into the waiting room, a Volunteer approached me and said, "are you with the McEldowney family? The doctor needs to see you immediately." I ran back to my dads room and he was sitting up in a chair. He wasn't in the bed. He was not hooked up to any machines. He was not sedated. I was in shock. I was SO happy! Dr. M explained that he was going for a radical approach today. He was keeping dad off from all sedation for the entire day to see what would happen.

It has been exciting to see dads progress. He is following more complex commands. While in the chair he could follow directions from the doctor ("Clarence, readjust yourself using the arm rests.") dad would do just that. He would plant his feet, grab the arms of the chair, and lift himself up. As dad became more aware he become more agitated and more aggressive. The plan was to keep dad from being too stimulated to see if this would help with the aggression. This meant that the doctor restricted who was allowed to see dad and how many of us were allowed to go back.

Around 12:30 p.m. we met as a family with the doctor, supervising RN, and a representative of patient services to address our concerns for my dad (about constantly being sedated, nursing care, etc). The meeting went well. Dr. M was very excited to see what today would hold for my dad.

As the day progressed so did my dad. He continued to try and talk and communicate with us. He has a trach in still which means he can't talk. We believed that this was adding to his agitation. At the meeting we asked about doing a voice box in the trach. The doctor agreed. At around 1:30 p.m. Dr. M ran out to the lounge and told me to come quick. When I walked back to his room, he was surrounded by two doctors, two techs, three nurses, someone I didn't know and myself. Thats when I heard it. I heard my dad speak for the first time in 14 days!! Dad lifted his legs, pointed at his feet and said, "get these off" (they had his legs restrained because dad tried jumping out of the bed). They agreed to do this. As soon as they took the restraints off dad made a run for it! He immediately threw his legs off the bed and tried pushing himself off, thankfully there were 5 or 6 people there to stop him. He was not happy. When asked why he was aggravated he said, "too much. Too much, too much extra." There were too many people in the room. We have a very wonderful Tech, ML, who sat and worked with dad all day, sat him back and told him he was not allowed to get out of bed. Dad looked at her and said very forcefully, "I dont want you! I don't want you!" despite my dad's sudden dislike of her, he listened very well to her and did lay down and did relax. We all exited the room and ML was able to get my dad to sleep (without any medication).

Throughout the day, we continued to see improvement in my dad. He understood he was in a hospital (he thought he was at U of M), he recognized all of us. (Calling Tom: Tommy). When Nathan went back ML asked dad, "do you know who this is? Dad responded by saying, "yup, he's my best friend." Dad rested a minute and looked up at Nathan and said, "I love you." What a joyous moment!

Earlier in the day dad kept saying that he wanted to die, he would occasional swear at the nurses, but as the day went on his attitude started to change. He started saying that he didn't want to die and kept saying, "it's a good life." He stopped telling the nurses to go away and instead started kissing their hands and telling them, "I love you."

The goal for tonight is to allow dad to get a good nights sleep (he needs REM sleep). Tomorrow he will be awake, unmedicated and we will see what progress he makes after getting a good nights sleep. 

Oh - and due to so much progress, Dr. M and the neurologist (Dr. R) agreed that he should be transferred to an acute rehabilitation center for assessment and occupational, physical and other therapies as required to get him as far as possible towards coming home.  Since this paperwork was started late in the day and because it was a Friday, this move will probably not happen until Monday....but it feels so good to have a plan.