Wednesday fun continued...

I was so excited to hear about my dad's daytime activities that I decided to drive back and hope to catch a glimpse of the progress on Wednesday night. He definitely pleased me! When I got there, he had been chatting with his friends, Bernie, Dick and John, for nearly two hours! Now, remember, chatting doesn't mean talking about the good old days or anything YET because he doesn't seem to remember who people are from minute to minute but he was answering questions and just making general comments. His progress is awesome! His temperature was also down around normal (which I realized when I went home and used my trusty online Celsius to Fahrenheit converter - why do they use Celsius??)

Though he didn't seem to recognize me at first, he understood my function in his life because he kept asking me to take him home. This insistence went on for a couple hours. He even told me to "go get the transport Lindsay." He was using fairly big words such as immediately and regardless. He seemed fixated on a few words and kept using them over and over. He tried to get out of bed many times and kept pulling off the sensors on his feet, insisting that it was time to go home. We had to keep explaining to him that he wasn't quite ready to go and that he had to stay there for a little while longer to keep healing. At one point, he carefully touched his head where the stitches were and momentarily and fleetingly realizing what happened to him, said "oh God, oh God." But the next moment, he was back to insisting that he be taken home. When we asked him how his head felt, he smartly told us he had a hangover. Classic! :)

While I was there, he said he wanted to talk to my mom and Brian and Uncle Tip. So we called them and he spoke with my mom and Brian and left what was probably a confusing message on Uncle Tip's answering machine. One minute he will remember my name and call me Lindsay and the next minute he seems to struggle to place me This is a little hard but completely understandable considering the severity of his injury. It is amazing that he is off the vent and talking after only 3 weeks so I will take the forgetfulness and remember the nice smile and kiss on the cheek he gave me when I left. It was well worth the drive :)

We all have to remember just to keep telling him that everything is okay and try to talk normal to him. Hopefully some normalcy will get his brain working and maybe things will start coming back to him. The doctors are very happy with his progress and one doctor called my mom this morning to ask who Lindsay was because he kept talking about me. Hopefully he is not mad that I didn't take him home last night ;)

Overall, just don't be surprised or sad if he doesn't seem to remember you. This is all just a part of his recovery and getting him back to himself. We just have to be very patient and helpful because he will need it during his recovery.

Also, my mom and I spoke to the witness earlier in the week. He saw the whole thing happen because he was driving in the lane opposite my dad. He also happened to be a volunteer fireman so that proved to be helpful in the initial minutes after the accident. The witness said that my dad just hit some gravel and his tires instantly flew out from under him and he fell on his left side "like a ton of bricks." He said he had never seen someone go down so hard. So it doesn't appear that he had a medical condition and it seems that the whole thing was just a freak accident. The witness was very happy to hear how well he was doing and mentioned that his helmet, which flew off after the initial hit, saved his life. So this is a message everyone should abide by and share with family and friends - WEAR YOUR HELMET because they absolutely do save lives. (That was my public service announcement for the day...)







A cute picture - two of his favorite things - sleeping and his Santa hat :)






I'll be back up tomorrow through the weekend so I will post soon!

L