Weekend update

Shel and I have been doing the run around all weekend, so here is a much overdue post.

On Friday Mom had the pre-planned tracheotomy surgery as well as a procedure to put the feeding tube directly into her stomach. When we arrived Friday night she was still pretty out of it, but we had a a short conversation (now much improved because we can try to read lips), but we let her rest and headed to Gabe's place for the night. She looked remarkably better than last week though. Her skin tone is much better and with the tracheotomy they let her move around a bit more and she doesn't have to stay quite so much flat on her back anymore.

One complication of the feeding tube procedure is they had to let it set for nearly 48 hours before they could feed her through it. Meaning that for the entire weekend Mom was HUNGRY. On Saturday she got upset enough about it that they gave her a sleeping pill and she conked out for the rest of the day. We, of course, keep making jokes that it is one hell of a way to lose weight.

Yesterday I got to have a long conversation with Mom. She tried to talk quite a bit, but right now when she talks it is low, raspy, phlegmy and nearly impossible to make out so that didn't work too well. She really wanted to know what is coming up for her and had a lot of general questions. She wanted to be put in a wheelchair and wheeled around, we told her that we couldn't do that, but she insisted that we ask the nurse. The nurse came in and explained that she couldn't get out of bed yet, so Mom asked what needed to happen for her to be able to get out of bed. The nurse said that she needed to be off the ventilator first, and that currently the ventilator was providing 10 breaths a minute and Mom was providing about 12. Thus she is halfway off of it, which is good news to all of us.

During the course of the same conversation Mom also asked Shel and I to make sure that Dad get her phone out of her purse. We told her that yes, Dad had got the phone out of her purse and had now been using it for nearly 2 weeks, probably racking up what will surely be an incredible bill. She then wanted to know what the phone number to her room was. We told her that she didn't have a phone because she was in the ICU. Apparently she didn't realize that because in response she wrote "it all makes sense now." Eventually she got tired, so we called it a day and headed home.

Mom had a number of visitors this weekend: Jeannette, Jennifer, Kim from DHS and her daughter, Vicki from the old Davenport days and her daughter Becky, and Reina (Dad's sister). Unfortunately for Reina she visited, twice, while none of the rest of us were at the hospital after she had come all the way from Iowa City. Reina, call us next time!

Mom continues to receive a number of cards and well wishes and we send you all many thanks.

Bye-bye now.