Monday Afternoon

I finished up work -- got a good amount done today! -- and went back over to the hospital. What a dramatic change from a tough morning. He was alert, and had had a busy day. He took about three steps on his own today, supervised by the orderlies. He had (and passed) two parts of the swallow evaluation, and will have a third shortly. It looks like he may be able to eat soon. He asked me to bring him some spaghetti. While he was working on the swallow evaluation with the speech therapist, we sang together a little (Dark Town Strutters' Ball), though we both forgot the words. It was a nice moment. I've been singing that song with my father since I can remember. He teared up when I gave him a card that had arrived in today's mail from his friend Gayle. I told him that Andy, Cousin Carole's husband, had downloaded some pictures from Google showing aerial views of various places, including the hospital and the field where he brought the plane down in Murietta, as well as the intersection of my street and Ventura Blvd. The hospital and my street are certainly familiar sights!

Dad is already starting to analyze the crash, and to remember specific decisions he made and thinking about what he might have done differently to bring the plane and himself down with less damage. His mind is hyper-analytic, and it's good to see the gears in motion. He's starting to talk about the future, asking what the next steps are. He's apologizing profusely to the ICU staff about his breakdown last night, shaking every one's hand and asking for their pardon, and charming them with his humor. We've devised a plan for how to deal with it if it happens again. Because he likes to think things through analytically, I'm going to print some information for him about the syndrome (they called it "sundowning"). If it happens again he's going to try to remember that we spoke about it, and the ICU staff is going to tell him: "Deb says to calm down!". I'm going back tonight around 9:00 to help him ease into the night. We reviewed my yoga breathing exercise. As I was leaving, he said enthusiastically: "I feel better!".