(Originally posted February 19, 2009)

Holy seven hours of sleep, Batman! Five of them were even in a row! I feel significantly better now. Sleep rocks out loud.

Anyway, so I promised to do an end-of-the-day post for yesterday. Not a whole lot has changed since yesterday afternoon. More standing up, a few more little steps. His range of motion is getting better on his right arm, so he's naturally reaching for more things with it (J.J. is right handed). Of course, his depth perception is still off and his purposeful motion is not all the way back, so this led to humorous scenes such as dinner last night, when he was trying to reach his glass of water that was sitting behind his plate and kept putting his whole arm in his mashed potatoes. He's so stubborn, though--he didn't want me to help him get the glass. He finally got it, then I spent a moment cleaning gravy out of his IV site. Hopefully there are no gravy-borne toxins at this hospital.

His speech is getting somewhat better too. He is actually saying yes and no verbally most of the time now instead of just shaking his head. Three and four word phrases are pretty common. I'm even starting to forget to phrase questions in a way that can be answered yes or no because he's getting so much better at answering them. By the end of the day yesterday, though, his speech was pretty slurred again. I think he was just completely worn out. One of the aftereffect of stroke is sleepiness, so he's been more groggy than normal.

We're still in the ICU because his blood pressure has been running high again. It was 158/113 when I left last night. Hopefully we'll get that under control soon.

His oxygen (which he has been receiving through a nasal cannula) was discontinued yesterday. It's nice to not have that on his face. He hasn't had a nosebleed since.

I have a doctor appointment myself this morning, so I won't be at the hospital until around 12:00. I'll update you all after I get there.