A Better Day Than Most

Last night I actually went home and slept in my own bed. I slept until 12:30, then got up and worked in the shop a little with my army of reinforcements who came to help sell pots during our Ithaca Art Trail Open Studio Weekend. Then I went to the hospital and found my hubby awake and talking with his Passy-Muir valve on his trach tube!

According to his nurse, Alex slept peacefully most of the morning. When I got there at 2, he was ready for some interaction. It's very clear that between the pain killers and the trauma of being in the ICU, he has ICU Syndrome, but he was more coherent than he has been in recent days. He was able to sit in the recliner for a half an hour, and it was such a relief to have him be able to SAY when he was ready to go back to bed, instead of trying to guess from the look in his eyes.

While he was in the chair he asked me to massage his arms and legs, and asked if we could get a massage therapist to come see him. The hospital doesn't have massage therapists on staff, which I think is very shortsighted, if unsurprising. The Finger Lakes School of Massage doesn't even send its students over to practice on patients because they want their students to get to see the improvements in health that massage can afford a patient over a period of time, and most hospital patients don't stay long enough. He's going to be in the hospital for weeks yet, if not months. Certainly someone with a case history like Alex's should merit the attention of a massage therapist, so I'm going to call the school on Monday and see if I can get someone to come work with him. The students work for free; they need to accumulate a certain number of practicum hours to complete their program.

He also expressed an interest in having some acupuncture while in the hospital; I know it would stimulate his lymphatic system and speed the healing process. I have to see if the doctors/hospital will allow it. I hope they will. Alex has also asked for us to arrange for him to have some EMDR therapy later in his recovery process; it's a technique that has been used successfully for treating post-traumatic stress disorder, which I think we can safely say Alex has...

Tomorrow we'll sell more pots, I'll visit Alex in the morning, and we'll get ready for Monday, when they'll assess him and decide whether we can get him OUT of the ICU. He has to meet certain landmarks in his recovery, so keep you fingers crossed. The sooner we get him out of there, the sooner he can really start to recover!