Wednesday, July 7, 2010 7:30 PM, MDT

BIG PHYSICAL THERAPY DAY!!  Bill shook the doctor's hand this morning and has been giving thumbs up to people. He is starting to be aware of what is going on. He was confused as to why he wasn't breathing through his mouth, until Joy explained to him that he has a tube in his throat and had him touch it. That calmed him down a bit.

The morning physical therapy session included waking up, sitting up, holding up his head, stretching legs, which is painful to him, and holding up his arms.

After a long nap, we had an afternoon PT session. That included putting him on a tilt board and standing him up on his legs as he was strapped in. His blood pressure and breathing was steady the whole time. He had some arm movement and very slight leg movement during that. The therapist was pleased with Bill's performance. And that pretty much wiped him out for the day.

We moved into our new housing and had an oven-cooked meal. We are hoping that we'll be comfortable there.

Thursday, July 8, 2010 7:28 PM, MDT

All we can say is that dialysis sucks! The dialysis machine was having some difficulties. It took an extra long time to get the job done. Dialysis really wears him out and he was pretty sleepy this afternoon.

Occupational therapy did get a chance to work with him and he now has a nice pink sponge to squeeze with his hands. Bill has been using it frequently throughout the day.

He mouthed to the nurses that he wanted to go home. Maybe tomorrow he will get to try talking with an addition to his trache.
The ventilator machine is gone from his room!

The stomach feeding has begun again and that will help give him some more energy.

All the sores that were covering his body are almost all healed. We are hoping that the sores on the inside are healing at the same rate.

We are all moved into our little apartment and are finding it more comfortable than the hotel.

Friday, July 9, 2010 6:28 PM, MDT

We got moved out of ICU to PCU (progressive care unit)! The PCU has 1 nurse per 4 patients, a larger room, and it means that Bill no longer needs the ventilator. He still has the trache in and tube feedings. He gets tired extremely easily. Just moving him over a unit mixed with 2 PT sessions wiped him out. The speech therapists gave him a white board to try and write on, which he hasn't been able to use because he's been asleep.
 The room is more comfortable for us, as it is bigger and actually has real chairs to sit in. We are also more free to sit in here with him and are able to come and go as we please. We don't have to call in to visit anymore which is nice.
 It finally got hot here (88 degrees), but its supposed to cool down again next week.

Every morning I woke with a sick stomach. It was so hard to eat breakfast. Usually, once I got to the hospital and seen Bill  my sick stomach would go away. I was nervous all the time we just didn't know what would happen that day. I almost always went to bed feeling ok, but sometimes I was trying to reasure my girls that everything would be Ok, even if I wasn't so sure myself. I learned the power of positive thinking. 


The journal that we kept and the e-mails that we sent really helped us. We looked forward to every comment or words of encouragement that we recieved.

Bill had trouble digesting the liquid food that he was recieving, so the doctors put the feeding tube directly into his intestines. He tolerated that fine.

Bill had some awful looking sores all over his body. They were dark purple and black. They were caused by the infection. Some were as small as a pencil eraser and some were very large. Both knees were completely covered by a black leathery sore. Also his entire skin was peeling off in big flakes. We were ok with having to wear the gloves because he was a little yucky to touch.

The girls and I were very excited to leave the ICU because we knew that it ment that Bill was getting better. Bill didn't seem to understand that he was moving to a unit that ment he would get better. We were concerned. The next day he wrote on the white board to bury him in Hamel(his home town). I thought that he was giving up and I was very upset.

It was nice to beable to come and go as we pleased and didn't have to check in with anyone when we wanted to be with Bill. Since the room was more comfortable we mostly would stay with him all day. We went to eat and get out for a few hours but most of our day was doing whatever we could for Bill. It was 12 hours or more of hospital. Very rarely were we sitting, we cared for Bill in whatever way we could.

It was almost exactly three weeks that we spent in the ICU.