Fabulous Day!

Look! No collar!!!! Randy was able to get the collar taken off today and he loves it being gone. Now we can even out his hair!

Today was so absolutely wonderful. I wish everyone could have been there today to enjoy in how responsive and lucid Randy was today. It was so absolutely amazing.

With the more alertness, though, comes more realization from him. He is able to know now when he is alone and he doesn't like it. When we walked in today, the first thing Randy said was "I am very thankful to see you two today" Throughout the day he would ask us not to leave him. He also kept saying "Don't lose me". I wonder if the lost thing comes from a conversation I had with him just a couple of days ago ~ when it was just he and I, I told him I was so scared I was going to lose him the first few days he was there. He was very clear, though, on us not wanting to leave him alone. In fact, he said "I don't want to be alone. I want to be a pain in the butt". His mom tried to clarify, asking if he meant he did NOT want to be a pain, but he was insistent, he did want to be a pain in the butt. We laughed and he kind of laughed with us then said "I'm not joking". Tonight, I kept trying to explain to him that we would stay with him until he fell asleep and then we would leave, come home and get some rest, and come back first thing in the morning. He was fine with that until he as getting very sleepy. Then when I told him that we were leaving when he fell asleep, he said "We'll see about that". It made it very hard to leave, but his room is really too small now to have someone sleep in it.

Randy also said today "I really want to be home. I want it soon". Then another time, he said he wanted to come home and play with Cass and the rats (he calls our 3 dogs "the rats" because of how small they are). At one point, I showed him a picture of our dog Daisy, and I asked him what her name was. He couldn't think of it so he finally gave up and said "The rat".

He had several times today that he couldn't think of the words he wanted to us, but he tried really hard to verbalize whatever point he was getting at. If he just couldn't come up with it though, he used the word "spot" in its place. It made things very confusing at times.

Throughout the day, I tried to quiz on him a couple of things ~ to point to where the calendar in his room is and to tell us what his nurse's name was. Once, when I asked him the latter question, his response was "Rachel and Marsha". That is, in so many ways, the truth ~ we have been his nurses, working right along with whoever is assigned to him. Randy also said a few times today that he was thankful we were there to ask so many questions ~ and he would say this right after we were asking questions to the nurse on different things such as medications, getting the neck brace off, the list goes on...

Randy was amazingly polite today. He has always been a very polite person. All throughout today, he was telling his mom and I how thankful he was for us being there and he would tell the nurses how thank you whenever they would do something for him. Also, when his mom and I took him outside for a bit today, he wanted to know if we were comfortable and offered us his sheet. Then, when I was feeding him lunch and dinner today, he wanted to share with others. We kept having to tell him this was his food and he needed it to get better.

Randy and I started going to church together about a month before the accident. This morning, he out of the blue told us that he dreamt about the church and he said "I want to be involved in the church more. I think the pastor can help with that". It really amazed me.

Something funny that he said: I was hugging him and he licked my hair and I asked him why he did it. He said "It was available". A little later, he licked him hair again and I said "don't lick my hair". He responded "No promise about that!"

A couple of medical updates: He is able to swallow pills now, which is great. It shows a lot of improvement in his eating/swallowing ability. He also got his stitches out today, except for the one the doctor missed that we found later. One negative thing ~ they had to put the catheter back in. Randy is able to tell us when he has the need to go to the bathroom, but he wasn't able to go. They are going to have urology take a look at him on Monday.

Another great thing about today was that we were able to hang out with Randy and not have any of the restraints on except the waist one to make sure he doesn't try to climb out of bed. The down side of that, of course, means that with no restraints, Randy will need to be moving on from that floor. Our hope is that he remains this lucid and doesn't slip back any so that he can test well enough to be accepted in the full on acute rehab that Harborview has. If not, we will be hopefully going to the place we selected in Tukwilla (I haven't checked bed availability recently). If they do transfer him, though, I will post as quickly as I can to let everyone know where is at.

Until then, we are hoping that tomorrow will be another lucid today, so we encourage any that have the time to come see Randy. He is infection free and no longer contagious with anything. We just ask that his visitors are healthy to make sure he stays that way! He loved it when his Aunt and Uncle showed up today. He loves visiting with people.

Okay, this post is long enough. I could go on with more because today was just so absolutely amazing, but I need rest so I can get there early tomorrow!