PT Wins

The surgery on Dad's arm last night went well. The doctor said when they opened up the area where the abscess was, it was a mess, and no wonder he's been in a lot of pain. They expect him to be much more comfortable now that that's cleaned up. They removed an entire vein from his wrist up almost to his shoulder, and closed off the openings so that the blood will reroute itself. One doctor explained it like coming to a road block. You just find another way around.

Today Dad was much more comfortable than he was over the weekend. It was strangely comforting to see him back to trying to work in his sleep, running his imaginary table saw above his bed and fumbling around for his glasses or phone, or maybe it was his measuring tape he needed. It seems that he sleeps in his at-work dreamland when he's feeling ok in terms of pain.

I got to be present for the first time for Dad's visit from OT/PT today. It was pretty cool to see how they're able to work him and get him sitting upright on the side of the bed with his back-brace on. Man it takes a long time to position that thing correctly! Those therapists sure are patient people, and so was Dad today, praise God! While they had him upright they had him unwittingly work his core muscles a little by having him clean his face with a washcloth and brush his teeth. Those tasks also distracted him from the length of time he was sitting up.

After PT, I expected Dad to lay back in a heap and go directly to sleep, but he surprised me by saying he would "try some more of that dry chicken" that he had been eating for lunch before the PT team came. He even fed himself bites that I got onto his fork, tried to stab his own bite of chicken once, and held his cup to get drinks on his own. He commented that it works better when he opens his eyes. I had to laugh, because we all keep telling him it's nearly impossible to tell whether he's awake or not because he keeps his eyes closed most of the time. He had his eyes open more today than I've seen since his first day in the hospital, so that was nice to see, and I told him so. He said Mom told him the same thing, and that it was nice to see him smile. I had to agree with his report of her comment when I got to see him smirk or hear him laugh a little at one of the OT's corny jokes today. Dad gave it right back to the guy, too. As the team was about to leave, the OT said, "All right we'll get out of your hair now," to which Dad replied, "Both of them, huh?"

It's been a good day.

Please pray that the nurses over the next 24 hours are able to help Dad stay head of his pain so that he doesn’t repeat the pattern of having an awful night and day following PT/OT.