Saturday, July 10, 2010 7:14 PM, MDT

The day began with dialysis, which took up the larger part of the morning. Then, after a nap, the physical therapist put him in a wheelchair and took him out into one of the waiting rooms that has lots of windows and a nice view of the Great Falls skyline. It was a nice change of scenery for Bill.

He now has the use of a whiteboard, and is able to write some things down, since he knows he doesn't have the ability of speech yet.

It was a slightly uneventful day for us, but an exciting one for Bill. 

Sunday, July 11, 2010 8:49 PM, MDT

Today was a good day! We were met with smiles! We finally found out that Bill wasn't hearing us talk to him so we have been using a white board to talk to him and he can write back too. This has made things so much easier for him because he understands what is going on. We were able to tell him the story of his getting to the hospital. He didn't believe me that he rode in an ambulance. We don't quite understand why he can't hear because I know he could hear in the ICU. They will be looking into it.
We were able to put him in a wheelchair and take him outside for few minutes. I think that was good. He asked me where the truck was. He probably has been worrying about that for days.
Bill gave us a thumbs down when we had to tell him that the PT was only going to be able to see him once today. We knew that he would be motivated once he knew what he needed to do.

Monday, July 12, 2010 7:30 PM, MDT

Today was.... interesting, but in a good way. The PT was in early this morning and had Bill standing up, with lots of support, of course. The PT was very pleased.

Around lunch time, Bill was taken to the operating room to have his dialysis catheter replaced. That went quite well.

Not long after, one of the respiratory therapists put the Passy-Muir Valve on. That allows Bill to talk. His voice is distorted partially because of the valve, and also because Bill can't hear. It is easier to communicate with him because of this valve.

Ever since the PT had Bill standing up this morning, he has been wanting to do it again. Instead, we put him in a recliner. He likes sitting in the recliner. It makes him feel a little less sick.

We always seem to be busy. There is rarely a time when we are at the hospital when we are just sitting. Most of the time, we are talking to Bill, talking to doctors, waiting for doctors to come so we can talk to them, or talking to nurses. It is very exhausting.

I am thinking that when Bill first came out of the ICU he thought that he must be dieing. I can't imagine how scary that must have been for him. Waking up in a hospital with everyone in blue suits, he couldn't hear, couldn't move his legs, breathing was very different. When we realized that he couldn't hear and wrote everything down for him he then knew that he wasn't going to die right then.

We came into Bill's room one afternoon and he had managed to somehow get himself half way off the bed. In his mind he could just get out of bed by himself. He did realize that he couldn't do it alone and didn't try it again. Just an example of his will to survive this awful disease.

Once I told the hospital staff that I needed to go home, they started the process of doing that. Thank goodness for the people who do that job. I wouldn't have had the first idea of what to do. It takes some time to arrange all the details.

Our days pretty much consisted of getting to the hospital around 9am and helping to take care of Bill as much as we could. We would try to get some lunch either at the hospital or go back to the apartment,and have a little break, then it was back to the hospital. We would have dinner at some point and back to say our good nights. We usually would try to leave around 9pm, if we could. Sometimes Bill would be very awake and it was hard to leave him.

There were beautiful sunsets every night as we went back to our apartment. The area around Great Falls is quite beautiful. It was hard to enjoy it too much however...