After a gloomy morning, Bill had a pretty good afternoon. He was very emotional this morning and then beligerent about doing his swallowing exercises. He's determined that the only way he is going to do them is with food, even though he knows that he won't get any food until he proves that he can swallow without aspirating. He used every argument in the book on why he won't do them. And then, all of a sudden, he said he knew he had to do them to get some food! I went to Walmart this afternoon and got a flip chart and some markers and a calendar. Put his upcoming appointments on the calendar along with dates I knew for company coming. We used the first page of the flip chart for goals. I then used a page for each of the exercises because reading them off the sheet of paper made him think that it would take forever. Of course his analytical mind started doing the math, partway. One exercise is to hold a falsetto EEEE for 8 seconds and repeat 5 times. He kept saying that's 40 seconds! I agreed and told him that the exercise was over in less than a minute. Then he said but you have to repeat it 2-3 times. And I told him that it would all be over in less than 5 minutes. We figured that all of the exercises, done back to back, with the proper number of repeats would only take an hour total. Then, he said, "That's a lot of time"! So I asked him what he was doing with all his time and he said arguing with me!

He did finally do some of his OT exercises this afternoon in the room, but still no swallows. He wants to move more than he's been able to and I think we're going to talk to the PT therapist tomorrow about doing more leg strengthening exercises and walking more.

His meds were given on time tonight and his food was started on time. In the morning I'm going to copy my notes to give to Tammy about the mix-up this week-end. And I was talking with the day nurse about his anti-rejection meds and commented that his Prenisone had been lowered twice. She said yes, that it was at 20mg. But, it's supposed to be at 15mg. So, I need to check tomorrow to see just what dosage they are giving him. It was changed Tuesday after he had his biopsy. And I know they got the change because the nurse came in and told me that Stephanie had called with it. So, I need to see what is in the computer.

All in all it was a decent day and I got to come home at a decent time and relax for a little whle, although I'm doing his laundry. His feeding tube either got disconnected in the night or they made a mess flushing it but he has "food" all over the shirt he had on and his favorite blanket. Hopefully it will come out. It's about like baby formula so I'm hoping Oxyclean will work.