God gave us a miracle today!

Can you see Randy's eye in this picture? It is open!! He had his eyes open a lot wider than this, but by then, the disk in my digital camera was full.

But opening his eyes was not the only thing Randy did today. He started the morning off by trying to talk again, but we couldn't understand what he was trying to say. Randy's nurse for the day, Becky (who is absolutely wonderful ~ we have had her for a few days off and on) started giving him commands. She told him to give a thumbs up. I don't think any of us really expected him to do it. He surprised us all! He then opened his eyes on command. As Randy's mom and I left the hospital to go to church this morning, I bent down to him and said "Randy" and he turned to me and said "huh". I then said "Your mom and I are going to leave now to go to church but your dad is going to stay with you. Okay?" He responded back with "Okay, okay". It was so clear.

All of that wore him out a bit, so he rested for awhile. But later, he had some family visit, and as his medication was wearing off (they had given him something to help him relax a bit) he started doing more and more. He would answer questions with a "Yeah" and by shaking his head yes or no. He did have times where he would try to answer by talking in full sentences, but we couldn't understand what he was saying.

By the end of the day, there were a couple of times I could tell he was getting frustrated. He was trying so hard to talk to us and I told him that we just couldn't understand right now. He raised his voice and said whatever it was again.

He even got upset at the nurse at one point, I think. She was suctioning out his mouth and throat, which gags him. She pulled the tube out, cleaned it and then told him that she was going to do it again. He clamped his mouth shut so hard!

It was so good to hear his voice and to get to communicate with him ~ to have a part of my Randy back! Yet, it was also really hard because we saw him in discomfort and being frustrated. He really wanted to pull the tubes out of his nose (he has a feeding tube in one nostril and then a trumpet thing to help clear his air way in the other). There were a couple of times throughout the day that I saw him try to breath through his nose and then he would try to reach up to pull it out and we stopped him he would get an awful look on his face. He was determined, though, to get the tubes out. Even when we restrained his right hand by tying it up (he still isn't really using the left side), he started bending his upper body down to the hand to try to pull it out.

Today was just an absolutely amazing day!

Even with all of the great things that happened today, though, we need to remember that Randy isn't out of critical condition yet. His body is still battling infection. He still needs a lot of prayer that his body will be strong enough to battle whatever infection it is dealing with.