One day at a time

Alright, day 3. Before updating on Mom, I thought I might just fill you all in on the family briefly first. Dad has been spending the night at the hospital with Mom the last couple of nights. His first night in the room with her, he got a pretty decent night's sleep, all things considered. Last night was a lot more eventful, and he wasn't able to get much rest, but he has had the knowledge of visitors coming this afternoon to look forward to. He and Mom enjoyed a nice visit with Mike & Laura McLeod and also Joe & Lois Carter. He got out for little while when Mike took him to lunch (Laura stayed and visited with Mom) and he was able to enjoy being out in the sunshine a bit. Anyone who knows Dad, knows what being outside does for him. He and I will be swapping out for the night so he can sleep in a real bed and get better rested. He's keeping a good sense of humor, and he's the same old Dad. He opened up a can of Vienna Sausages this evening, stuck a straw into one of them, and sucked it out. It was pretty funny, especially since he had a goofy smile on his face while he did it. He just didn't feel like walking to the cafeteria to get a fork, but Erin Wilson brought us dinner tonight (which was delicious!) and had some forks and paper plates, etc, so he won't have that problem again. :)

Dave and Amber had to leave to go back to Winston-Salem last night after their visit here when they brought Olivia. Dave went back to work for the day, they were able to grab some more stuff and they are actually on their way back to Chapel Hill as I type. They're coming straight here to the hospital and we're hoping for another uplifting visit for Mom with Olivia.

Staci is unfortunately feeling a little under the weather. She's mostly got cold symptoms and a little bit of a sore throat, so she's having to stay away from Mom right now. Hopefully it'll run it's coarse quickly and she'll be able to resume her visits with Mom again.

Taelor is here with us, and she's been great. She's missed school since Wednesday and she's going to miss next week too. I called the school and they're excusing her from all of it, so that's good, and her teachers are going to help her catch up on what she's missed when she gets back. She misses her friends, but she's happier to be up here with Mom and the rest of the family.

Okay, on to business... Mom has had more moments of alertness, but as anticipated, she's very uncomfortable and she's in pain. She's able to speak more clearly and her eyes aren't nearly as glassy. The swelling in her face has gone down a LOT, but she's still kind of swollen elsewhere. Not too bad though. She's finally been able to have a productive cough and that's helped. When I called Dad this morning to check in, she said, "I want to sit in a chair," very clearly. She was able to sit up in a chair for three and half hours. Big improvement. She wasn't very happy about it, but the nurses also had her walk down to the end of the hall and back with the help of a walker, and a nurse on each side of her to support her arms. Yay! Since I got here tonight, she's talked a little bit more, sometimes to tell us she's hurting, sometimes to just talk to us. She's been kind of funny. Like earlier, when I first got here, she told me she didn't know where she was. I said, "Mom you're at UNC, at the hospital. Remember? They brought you in a helicopter?" She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Well that's crappy." It was kind of funny, but I definitely agree. Then another time tonight, a new nurse came in to talk to her and she asked her if she knew where she was, Mom said, "hospital." Sarah (the nurse), asked if she remembered why she's here, Mom said, "hospital." Sarah asked if she knew what year it was, Mom shrugged and shook her head. Then Sarah asked if she knew who the President is, Mom said (and this is my favorite response, hands down) "a bad one." Again, I agree. A little later, Sarah was changing out some drains and had some of those little wax cups they put medicine in and somehow one ended up on on Mom's thumb. She lifted her hand up to the nurse with the cup covering the whole thumb and said, "Why is this here?" Dad and I both just started laughing and took it off, but all we could think of was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - "Why is there a cork on the fork?" I guess you probably have to be here for some of this to be funny, but we have to laugh when we can. She's given us a few more smiles tonight. She was kind of stirring around so I got right in front of her to see what I could do and she opened her eyes, looked straight at me and smiled, then lifted her hand to my check. She's looked over at Dad and Taelor and smiled at them once or twice and Cy and Julie Howington must be good medicine because they're here right now and she's been smiling at them a lot. We are hopeful this is going to improve each day and before long she'll be enjoying the jokes with us.

As I said before, I'll be spending the night tonight, so as there is more to post, I'll do it. We look forward to seeing some visitors coming up this weekend. We also wanted to let you all know the address here in case you'd like to send Mom a card or something.

Pamela Brew
CTICU 2719
UNC Hospitals
101 Manning Dr.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514