Changing Tides

(David eating his breakfast!)

Tonight I packed David’s bag in preparation for his discharge from the hospital, and transfer to the in-patient rehab facility tomorrow.  Less than a week ago I was strategizing ways to keep David in the hospital longer, to give him more time to heal and be ready to take full advantage of his stay at the rehab hospital.  His improvements and progress since his surgery have taken me by absolute surprise and I have to say that tonight I feel the time is right to have him move on to the next stage of his recovery.  

Yesterday David “passed” his swallow evaluation and was cleared to be on a pureed food diet, and his feeding tube was removed.  It was his last line to come out, and he is so much happier and more comfortable to be free of all the entanglement and tape.  His drooling has also miraculously resolved.  His speech and self-expression continue to improve, which is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, he can communicate how he is feeling, what he wants and what is on his mind. . . on the other hand, having to have the same conversation with him 8 million times in a row without losing patience is not easy.  He is fixated on finding a way to get home, and will stop and ask strangers for money to hire a car.

His memory of recent events also seems to be improving.  Now, when asked why he is in the hospital he will often say something like, “Well, I don’t remember, but everyone keeps telling me I fell out of a tree.”  And then he will usually shake his head and laugh in disbelief about how obviously ludicrous that is.  He told me he didn’t think that falling out of a tree would put him in the hospital.  That he has fallen before and just gets right up afterwards.

I stayed with him last night and we snuggled together on the hospital bed, and then the guest cot.  He would wake up frequently and need to be redirected away from anxiety-causing thoughts, but he always came back to bed when I told him how tired I was and asked him to lay back down with me.  The way he would wrap his arms around me and pet my head and rub my arms was so familiar I could almost pretend nothing had happened and we were home relaxing to sleep together.  His protector and provider instincts are definitely still there.

He sometimes surprises me with flashes of insight.  This morning when we were walking outside I was telling him how nice it was to spend the night with him and how happy and safe and good I feel when we are together and he responded, “I don’t know why you feel that way, it’s my fault we’re in here in the first place.”  I tried to explain to him it was just an accident, not his fault, but I’m not sure he believes me.

I have also been very impressed at how restrained he is still able to be when his emotions run high.  His distress and frustration and anger whenever he is told he cannot leave the hospital distort his face, and cause his voice to raise and hands to shake.  But he has never once struck out at anyone or used foul language or been destructive.  Today he threw a book across the room when he was told he had to stay just one more night, but it was a very calculated move.  He looked where he was going to throw the book, readjusted his aim so he would not hit anyone, and did not use his full strength.  He is just so tired of feeling like nobody is listening to him or helping him with something that is so simple in his mind.

The kids came to visit.  When I got the text from my sister that they had just parked and were on their way up I told David we should go sit by the elevator and wait for them.  His impatience was probably almost as unbearable to watch as it was for him to feel.  He couldn’t stop pacing back and forth and asking me if I was sure they were coming, and if we could just go find them, and why they weren’t there yet.  As soon as David could get his hands on J he held him on his lap and smooched his little face over and over again.  J and Z both laughed and seemed much more at ease than last time they visited.  It helped a lot that David’s conversational skills have improved so much, and his voice switched with ease into the tone and phraseology that he usually uses when he’s playing with the kids.  I had the ball ready again, and some coloring supplies and modeling clay and it really seemed to help David and the kids interact more naturally.  

He couldn’t get enough of them and cried again when he was hugging us goodbye.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look of pained longing on his face as he stood there with wet cheeks and his one big blue eye watching the elevator door close us off from him.

I spent the rest of the day with my sister and the kids getting our Christmas tree.  The familiar ache and loneliness were present in my heart as we completed such a fun family tradition with part of our family missing.  But somehow I still feel faithful that this is a temporary time of separation and that we are moving closer to our something good.  

I also want to say here how much this experience has revealed to me that, truly, no man is an island.  I went about my daily life pre-accident feeling very confident that our family existed, for the most part, in our own little bubble.  I now see that in reality we were, and are, part of a huge web of interconnected lives, where one strand moves and the entire web shakes.  The sheer volume of outreach and love from so many people has surrounded and salved and strengthened me in this dark time.  Every act of kindness, large or small, towards me and my family has been felt to the deepest depths of my being and has had a truly heart-changing effect on me.  There is no way I will ever be able to repay, or even to thank, every single person who has offered in love whatever they could towards us.  But I can say I will spend the rest of my life a changed person because of you.

(Christmas tradition)

(David cruising up and down stairs with minimal spotting from his PT therapist)