Today Louise seems to have turned a corner. The doctor had told us that the most swelling happens about 72 hours post-surgery. It has been 74 hours now and she is remarkably better today. The agitation is much lower than yesterday. She is starting to be able to carry on a conversation somewhat. I talked with her on the phone and she responded appropriately most of the time. She still is having some issues with how “long” this is all taking. We are trying to convince her that 4 days is NOT long.
They took her IV out today so now she feels she should be able to go anywhere she wants on her own. (We all knew this was coming  ) Ray said his biggest concern is that she will try to get up on her own and fall. He is staying with her during the night to prevent such a thing from happening. The bed alarm is great, but she is fast and could easily be out of the bed before the nurses made it down the hallway. She thinks she knows better than them anyway.
They will move her to rehab tomorrow. I still do not have much info on that yet. It is a place called Heritage on Limestone Parkway. Other than that I don’t know much. I am sure we will learn more over the next few days. We do know that she will have a semi-private room at first. They say that they should have a private one by Monday. We don’t know what the visitation hours are like there yet. I know when Bill was in rehab for his brain injury the hours were limited to just a couple in the evenings. I assume it will be similar here, we will let you know when we know, because I think short visits with friends could be good sometime next week. We appreciate your patience with us on this.
Rehab will be good for her, because they will keep her busy with therapy of all kinds. They will constantly assess her progress and teach her some coping skills on how to handle her confusion and word retrieval. It was a Godsend when Bill did it, because he finally had a purpose other than sitting in a bed all day. I think the same will apply to Louise. She is such a do-er that I think feeling like she can help herself get better will motivate her. She is already walking the halls at the hospital. Today she told me she went twice as far as yesterday…we are not surprised at that. The doctor said that since she was in such good health, active and had no other complicating illnesses her recovery may go quickly. So far this appears to be true, for which we are all very grateful.
Ray is doing well. The more like herself she gets the better we all do. We are tired of course, especially Ray and Bill since they are tag teaming to sit with her in the hospital. They are both taking occasional breaks from the hospital and that is helping. Hannah was in town today so she went to see her. Louise recognized her and was happy to see her. Peter has been to see her as well. William doesn’t want to go until she is more like herself. We respect that and told him we will go whenever he is ready. Aaron is still in Nashville finishing up his semester at Belmont, so he will be home in the next couple of weeks to see her. We are trying to space it out and make the visits short until she gets a bit less confused.
All in all it was a good day today. The time and prayers are working. Our next hurdle to jump is the report on the tumor that is supposed to come in next week sometime. It will tell us what her next steps will be in treatment, whether it is a fast or slow growing tumor, whether it is cancerous or not. Big day. I am not borrowing trouble by thinking about the possibilities. We will know when we know. I am thinking only of today and all the positive progress. That is all the grace I have at the moment, and it is sufficient.