(Originally posted February 17, 2009)

I'm back at home. It's a little after 9:00 p.m., I'm going to have someone installing a garbage disposal in my kitchen (which looks like a bomb hit it) in my house (which looks like a somewhat larger bomb hit it) in a little over twelve hours, and I can't possibly muster the energy for house-pride. I've had five hours of sleep in the last 63 hours. I'm typing this update and crawling into my bed. Hopefully I'll have a little more motivation in the morning.

The neurologist (who I shall now dub Sybil, as he was strangely upbeat and optimistic today, after channeling one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse yesterday) finally checked in at about 7:30 this evening. He didn't have a whole lot to say other than that J.J.'s movement is looking really good and he's recovering nicely. And that his blood pressure is higher than they want it to be. It was 186/126 at this point. Strangely, his blood pressure medication order had been canceled this afternoon and he had been almost ten hours without his meds at this point. They restarted the meds and his blood pressure is moving down a little now. It was 166/113 when I left. As soon as J.J.'s blood pressure is stable, he'll be moved up to the medical unit, which has larger rooms with comfortable chairs that fold out, chaise lounge-style. I can't wait.

Today the story has been all about J.J.'s physical recovery. He's been able to raise his right arm above his head and has now started doing a few dexterity exercises, like tapping his fingers against his palm. He's also working on purposful movement, like reaching to touch his nose or to give his therapist a high five. With his leg, he's been working on lifting his knee, flexing his toes (his control was so good on this area that the therapist couldn't get J.J.'s toes to budge at all when he tried to press against J.J.) and moving his leg out to the side to strengthen the hip flexors. He's been able to do everything the therapists asked, even though it's not always easy. Sometimes he tells them no. Then I tell him to do it anyway, and he does it. See, the dynamics of our relationship are still completely intact! He started sitting on the edge of the bed this morning and was sitting for about two hours cumulative time today. The last time, he even managed to sit up completely on his own.

He had a swallow study this morning and passed. He's now able to eat a regular diet. He had turkey, mashed potatoes and corn for lunch and a cheeseburger and vegetable soup for dinner. He's not eating a tremendous amount, partly because he's feeding himself with his left hand and gets frustrated at how long it takes and partly because the whole process of getting set up to eat, sitting on the edge of the bed, cutting, chewing, etc. is just really exhausting for him. He's drinking all the water he can get his hands on, though. At lunch he was dribbling a little water from the corner of his mouth, but by dinner, no problems at all. He says that after two days of NPO (Nothing Per Oral, I think--at least that gives you the idea), water is heaven.

His speech has lagged today, but I think it's primarily because of the emphasis on physical recovery and how wiped he is from that. I got a couple of new words this morning before all the PT and stuff, but it's still primarily one word or two word phrases. His speech is very intelligible but slightly slurred. He's incredibly angry about this. He worked for almost an hour this afternoon on trying to say my name. He still hasn't managed it. Or his name, for that matter.

His eyesight is also problematic. He reports that everything is kind of fuzzy and it takes a while for him to focus. I think this is most likely due to the uber-high blood pressure, though.

Stuff in store for tomorrow:

--PT plans to get J.J. out of bed and into a chair

--Speech Therapy will conduct their evaluation

--I'll meet with the Care Coordinator to discuss how my insurance is going to handle all of this

--Possible room change out of the ICU

All in all, a pretty decent day. I'll take it.

Now, before I fall asleep at the keyboard...

Good night.