3/7

Sleeping beauty made up for his long night of vomiting. He went to bed around 8:30 pm and slept until 11:30 am.

We got the results of his echo from the other day. Ethan’s doctor was delighted to report that “Ethan’s heart function is beautiful and healthy.”  She also went on to say the radiologist used the words “hyper dynamic” in their report which Ethan’s cardiologist said meant his heart muscle is in the top 25 percentile for strong pumps. She seemed impressed and happy by that.

This week Ethan will be going for his MRI to look at his brain. They will assess the brain injury he sustained from his stroke. 

We also found out we will not be going to Blythdale rehab center. Ethan’s kidney failure and need for dialysis were a factor as well as his need for a single room due to his immunosuppressive. They did find us another place to go that could facilitate his need for dialysis. It’s in New Jersey. My criteria was that I didn’t care where we went, I just needed to be able to stay with him. Unfortunately I have noticed I have become overprotective and hyper aware of anything involving Ethan. If a gnat farts too close to him, I will know about it. This may become an issue when we get home and I have to leave him to go to work. I will continue to work through it.

Ethan decided to do a lap and a half around the unit. The last half of the lap was split up. 1/4 of the way he sat in his wheel chair and moved the chair with his arms for his P90X complete work out and he rested the last 1/4 lap while I pushed him back.  He was making comments about my terrible chair driving skills because I was purposefully pretending to not pay attention and almost hit things.

Back in the room, his cardiologist asked him how he was doing today, how he was feeling and he replied nonchalantly “I am just kicking some ass today.” I laughed out loud. 

I washed his hair sitting in the chair and we are going to go back to the “bed bath” as the shower is so involved having to cover all his catheters, ripping tape (and skin) off, Ethan just doesn’t want to bother with it.. fine by me.

Ethan started sharing some of the things he experienced under the influence of the ICU cocktails. I remember when Ethan first had his surgery and he would point at the ceiling or point at the wall and nothing was there. He shared that he was seeing bugs. He saw a bunch of bugs all over the ceiling, walls and bed. He wasn’t scared by the bugs (thankfully) but no one seemed to notice them and he was trying to gain our attention to them. He then started talking about the yellow and red springs the nurses were putting in his nose and how painful they were. However, that was a delusion. That never happened either. So weird.

It was nice to have a Sunday before the tornado begins again tomorrow. This will be a busy week. My bright side....Ethan made 10 ml of urine today. It is better than none. He was bummed it wasn’t more. I was thrilled.