Friday, June 25, 2010 10:10 AM, MDT

Saw Bill this morning,  he was sleepy, the nurse had given him a dose of sedative and so he wasn't opening his eyes. They are not suppose to give him anymore the Dr's want him to wake up.

His lung x-rays came back better than yesterday, he is breathing on his own, but they won't take the tubes out until he wakes up. All his other vitals were steady. The kidneys are not working yet they are working on it. White blood count is still out of control.

They are giving him some food in his stomach and his stomach was making noises so maybe that will get some things going.

Keep up the prayers I think they are working, but have a long way to go.

Friday, June 25, 2010 10:43 PM, MDT

Another day of progress, his lung x-rays were pristine. He has been getting food in his belly, the nurses say that is a very healing thing for a body. We just need to get him to wake up, he is still so sleepy. He is getting physical therapy daily, they had him sitting on the side of the bed, apparently he tried to hold himself up. Go Bill!

Saturday, June 26, 2010 2:22 PM, MDT

Bill was a little more alert this morning when I went in. He started moving his eyes right away. They had him sitting up and had just gotten a bath. The nurse said he had his eyes open and was not happy about the bath. Ha, The girls visited a little later and got an update on his kidneys. They are taking him off the constant dialysis machine and switching to a more conventional one. They also gave him a shot to kick start the kidneys. Blood pressure meds are almost all off. He is making improvement every day. Keep it up Bill

Thank you to all the people who have  posted messages we read them all, it really helps boost our spirits.

We had to ask permission to enter Bill's room every time we wanted to visit, also we had to where plastic robes and gloves and masks. It was very uncomfortable for us.

 We had a bit of a routine going by now. I would wake up early and go see Bill. The girls would sleep in and join me later. Then we would go in and out every couple of hours. Every evening we would return to say our good nights and get back to the hotel by 9:30 pm.

 We got to know the nursing staff fairly well. The nurses were amazing. Not only did they take great care of Bill they wanted to care for us as well. One night nurse, Paul, brought the girls gift bags full of lotions and such. One nurse was going on her days off and gave us her home phone number. Another cried when she was going off shift for a few days.

Bill's white blood count was so high that they did a process that actually cleaned the white blood cells from the blood. It seems that his body didn't realize that he didn't need all the white cells.

It was around this time that we met Harriet. She was waiting by the ICU door one afternoon. I walked by and she saw my CSU shirt and she said I am looking for you. I was surprised that this elderly lady would be looking for me. It turns out that her son played hockey with Bill and when he heard that we were in Great Falls he called his mother and asked her to go to the hospital and offer up any help she could give us.

Harriet became one of our angels. She cooked  us dinner one night and visited us and took us out to eat often. She even offered to let us stay in her home. We looked forward to her visits with us.

It was a very stressful time because everyday we did not know what to expect. It was very hard for me to eat or sleep. The girls and I were sharing a hotel room so we weren't the most comfortable. We were trying prepare some of our food out of the camper, to save money and it was a little easier to eat.