After the terrible day Thursday, yesterday was much better. Bill was in a better frame of mind and actually ate most of his breakfast. It wasn't a lot, so maybe Mary did say something. He had a scrambled egg, 2 wedges of french toast and a small bowl of yogurt. He ate most of the egg, all but 2 bites of the french toast and none of the yogurt, but he doesn't like yogurt anyway. He also drank his coffee and milk.

The morning was very busy. We saw all but 1 doctor before noon! Dr. Threlkeld is happy with the way he has responded to the antibiotic. That course is almost finished and then he said we would talk about what to do about going forward. I told him we've got to break this cycle of 10 days in/10 days out and he agreed.

I asked Cindy if she knew Dr. Kirby and when I described him, she said there is a Dr. Curry with the lung group that fit that description. I did find him then, but there was no picture. So, a little more googling and there he was! But more on him later. When Bill was getting his morning meds, his Calcium had been discontinued so I asked Cindy if she knew why. His labs showed that it was within normal range and not too high so she said she would check into it. At lunch he got a calcium tablet, so she must have ordered it back. She did say that Mayo did want the Bactrim included in his meds, so it's still there. I guess when the pharmacy folks said they wanted to talk to Mayo, they followed through! Those students will make good pharmacists/techs whichever they are studying to be, if they continue to listen to patients and caregivers.

PT came in and, although he didn't want to, Bill did work with them. He walked to his chair and his sats only dropped to the upper 80s this time. Since his base number is 88, and he dropped to 87, that's not tood bad. He walked from his chair to the door of the room and back to the chair, which may have been the distance from his chair at home to the bathroom or bedroom. He dropped lower that time and took a little longer to recover, but he did. I told him when he said that he didn't want to walk, that he couldn't go home until he could walk around the house.

Two nurses from lung came in and listened to him and said he was moving air nicely, but still sounded junky. They asked about the shaky vest and I said it had only been used to my knowledge on Wednesday afternoon when they brought it in for the first time. I didn't know if they had used the percussion one, they had not while I was there. Since he still hasn't coughed up a sputum sample, Shea was going to talk to Dr. Threlkeld and see if he thought the bronch should be done to see what was growing. So far, no word back on that.

Dr. Curry came in after lunch and also said he was moving air well. He didn't think he sounded as junky as Shea and Dr. Threlkeld did. He's not, or wasn't coughing as much so maybe he is getting it coughed out and just swallowing it, which has been my suspicion all along.

He did better eating lunch. He had about 1/2 of his pork chop and some of his rice and cabbage. He did eat the ice cream of course! And when I talked to him last night he said the only thing he left was some of his dessert which was berries and whipped cream. It's usually more whipped cream than berries. Dinner was supposed to be either baked or fried fish with a baked potato. I'm hoping his was baked as he likes baked fish. I didn't ask him when we talked. 

He was doing a lot of coughing while we were talking and he did say they brought in something and used on him, so it might have been the percussion device. I told him when he was coughing like that to spit it into the cup and then call the nurse. Whether he remembered to do it or not is a mystery.

I came home a little early yesterday afternoon. Bill wanted to go back to bed earlier than usual and I had a headache so I asked if he minded if I left. The weather was still so bad I didn't want to drive home in the dark in it if possible. He said he didn't mind, and it rained so hard at times and there was so much traffic, especially trucks, that it took longer than usual. I had planned to go to bed early, but both of my craft packages came in yesterday, so of course I had to look them over, and get them both started! I am going in a little later this morning since it is Saturday. There shouldn't be as much traffic and I should be able to get a decent parking place. Bill had asked if we were getting any visitors and I told him I didn't think so, but I think Brianna and David are coming down today and Emily and Bryan may come tomorrow. I don't know if either of them will bring McKenna or not, depends on her busy schedule!

So, that's it. For those of you wanting me to slow down and take care of myself, I'm doing the best that I can. It's much easier said than done to tell a caregiver that you must take of yourself so that you can care for your person. We know that already, it's just not as easy as it sounds. We also have to deal with "normal" life, like bills and pets and household chores, and a lot of time, taking care of ourselves is just sitting in the silence of our home doing nothing. When I came home early the other day to meet the chimney sweep, I needed to vaccuum before he got there. But, the only thing that got done was the cat toys got picked up. Still haven't vaccuumed. And yes, my granddaughters have offered to help, so you can't fault the family for not stepping up. I just haven't taken them up on it. They do some shopping for me, which right now is enough. So, while I'm tired, my body will tell me when enough is enough as it has in the past. And until you've been a full time caregiver you can't know what it's like. OK, off my soapbox. This wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, just a general reminder.

Hopefully we'll have a good week-end and they can start weaning Bill's oxygen. He was still on 6 liters yesterday. But, it looks like another Thanksgiving in the hospital. Oh well, the food was pretty good last year! See you tomorrow!