A really really really good day!

Not ALL good but the good outweighs the bad for sure!

I had to start the morning by going to school. Bleh. And it was kinda a waste of time. I wanted back my exam from Friday, but he won't have it til Wednesday. I got my review for a Wednesday exam though, so it wasn't a total waste. Eh.

Went to Jason's Deli for salad bar to go. If you haven't tried this, you have to. It's $7.57 (with tax) and you get a big plastic container to fill up, as well as a small tub for dressing, and a bigger tub for whatever else you want (I usually do dessert, you could get pasta salad or whatever). It is more than enough for 2 meals, so I knew it would get me through the night.

Tom was up eating lunch with Reade when I got to the hospital. I heard that they were planning to take the catheter out today, and they also put him on a calorie count, so they have to measure everything he leaves on his plate and see how close to 2000 calories he gets. He is NOT a big eater, so for him to eat 2000 is a big challenge!

I sat with Tom and we flipped through our wedding album. He had been a little fuzzy on the specifics, but he remembered it as soon as he saw it. We might look through our honeymoon pics tonight if he's up to it. But I expect that he'll be pretty tired, as I'm about to explain.

This afternoon, they removed the catheter (sorry for TMI, but it's a nice sign of progress!) and physical and occupational therapy came by. They sat him up on the bed, helped him stand, and helped him walk over to the chair. He sat in that chair for about an hour, working with those therapists. Then he accepted our challenge to eat one cup of Ensure pudding and one Ensure shake, and he was successful! I couldn't believe him holding the pudding cup and scraping every last bit out. Then he chugged down that shake. Altogether it was a good 500-ish calories, so between breakfast, lunch, and Ensure, he was up to about 1100.

Still in the chair and eating pudding, the speech therapist came by to evaluate his swallow and speech. She did something I think will make a world of difference - cleared him for chopped up foods instead of pureed, and regular liquids instead of thickened! She quizzed him a bit trying to assess his cognitive level - he is a bit slow to find the words he wants a lot. For example, he was saying he was 53 instead of 33, then when we asked what year it was, it was 1953. He just had 53 on the brain. He eventually answered these questions correctly, though. He said we had 2 dogs and 3 cats (instead of 1 dog and 2 cats), but was able to name all three. Things like that are common, and he will need more therapy to sharpen up his thinking.

Then, they brought his dinner and it was actually edible! Chopped up roast beef, potatoes, and peas. He ate it all except 2 bites. He also ate a piece of bread with butter and drank some water and sweet tea. We put the tray in front of him and he ate it all on his own. It was freakin' cool.

The only bad thing other than school is I really wanted to meet with the case worker about rehab placement today, but I am sure she got busy since I didn't page her til about 1 or 2. Will get started on that ASAP tomorrow morning. :-) He is doing so good, rehab will just cement his progress and get him more ready for home (and give me a chance to clean the house). :-)