Two steps forward and one step back again today. And we're waiting to see what the echo and bubble test showed. The drs. didn't have much to say this morning since they were also waiting for the echo to be done.

He said he slept rather well last night but had a headache and still felt tired when I got here this morning. But, he ate all of his breakfast and was ready to take a walk afterwards. He did really well with the walk and was walking at a pretty good speed.

He went back to bed after the walk and they came to do the echo. He said several times during the test that where she was using the probe was hurting, and it was in an area that he has said before hurts.

The bubble test they did was to aerate some liquid of some kind to make tiny bubbles and then they were injected through his IV. That was kind of neat watching on the monitor. I don't know what it was supposed to show since I don't know what I'm looking at with the echo machine.

After that was finished, it was time to walk again and we didn't get 5 feet from his door when he started to collapse. The nurse was supporting him while I pulled the chair from the room and as we were putting him on the chair, his device fired. Jill and I both thought we had done something! Other nurses came running and got on the phone with the desk that monitors everything. We got him into the room and settled back into his chair. After this he seemed better and looked better.

Of course then the pacing center came down to get readings from the device and it was determined that his heart started racing and the pacemaker couldn't pace him out of it and when it got to a danger level the shock was delivered. She said his settings were pretty low so she consulted with the dr and they were raised a little, as far as the shock goes. The pacemaker will still start trying to pace him out of the arrythmia first.

We just took another walk around the circuit and he did ok, but he was really tired and is now taking a nap. He didn't eat much lunch and they are starting him on some supplement drinks this afternoon.

He's also starting to get depressed some. He made a comment last night that he wasn't getting any better. Today he said that he doesn't think he's going to leave here unless it's in a box. He also pointedly ignored Tina the VAD nurse when she was in this afternoon for our teaching session. The only thing I've said to him about this is that I know he wouldn't do anything to make me drive home by myself. But, I'm going to talk to him later and suggest that he talk to one of the psychologists. I know this is a normal part of the recovery but it doesn't make it any easier knowing that. I'm also going to do it when I know that I can keep my emotions under control. Or maybe he needs to see my emotions to see how that talk affects other people.

Anyway, enough of that. I'll let everyone know when we get some results of the echo.