Thursday Night

We (Mum, Erin, Bec and the rest of the family) are getting very used to the ICU waiting room. I said to Mum today that we should start do some exercises instead of just sitting and waiting all day...someone else replied "I wonder who you get that motivation from".


Mum and I went in to watch Dad have physio this afternoon. I can't describe the emotion that we felt while we were in watching as the physiotherapist was pounding Dad's chest, trying to loosen the mucus. The distressed look on his face was so painful to watch. Out of everything that has come about so far this was by far the hardest thing to watch the tears welling up in his eyes because he's in so much pain.

He needs to cough and he can't because of the tubes. I'm imagining it to feel like when you have a cold and need to cough up all the mucus on your chest, that real irritating feeling it the back of your throat but instead of being able to hoick it up, it just sits there and builds up.

They are slowly easing the amount of sedative medication and we could see tonight that he was a little more alert. Opening his eyes for longer periods of time and trying to move around a lot more.

Still struggling a little with the charade game...a whole lot of arm waving, head nodding and frowning does seem to get a bit confusing. The alphabet board is helping a little bit but is still very frustrating for him and for us the interpreters.

Tonight he was trying to tell us 2 things...first he was waving his arm around and looking at the nurse (whose name was Jason) and after much guessing and resorting to the ABC board we finally solved the puzzle...he wanted to "SHAKE" the nurses hand. It just goes to show that even though all the trauma he's been through he still has the need to thank the people who are helping him.

Secondly, he was signalling up. The guessing game continued and we finally realised he was cold and wanted a blanket over his chest. Something so simple but it took us a while to figure it out.

We said our goodnights to Bryan (Dad) and assured him that he is getting better but needs to just relax and rest. Tomorrow we may attempt to play the Moto-GP on a little portable DVD player for him...we will see how it goes.

Goodnight everyone and thank you once again for your uplifting words, they do really make a difference.

xoxo