Sylvia's Journal

Sunday July 15, 2007. My father had a catscan midmorning – they found a small fracture in his skull, but no bleeding or brain damage. Later in the afternoon they stopped giving him the really heavy sedative he had been on, upped his pain meds, and we saw a marked response in his alertness.

He opened his eyes, looked at us, squeezed my hand, tried to use hardy boys code to write letters on my palm, and did lovely little feet swirls as if swimming in the ocean. He seemed understandably confused, uncomfortable, and a bit scared. He was trying very hard to communicate, and it was very frustrating to not be able to hold or help him. However, it was really wonderful to be able to make eye contact, and really see each other.

The doctors have been really helpful – they tell me he is doing really well. Tomorrow they are going to try and take the tube out – he is breathing more actively today, and they think he might be ready to get the plastic out of his throat. (It really doesn’t look like much of a party.)

He has a very very large scar running from the top of his head all the way to the back – but they did a good job – looks like it will heal nicely. And they didn’t have to shave his beard off. I was worried about that.

Mum is doing well – rather uncomfortable, annoyed that she hasn’t heard back about the catscan she had this morning (should hear tomorrow am between 7 and 8). I think the waiting is really difficult for her.

She has to wear a neckbrace (as all the rest do) until the trauma team clears her. Hopefully this will be tomorrow morning. She has a lot of pain in her stomach, where they cut her open hoping to find an air bubble they thought was bubbling somewhere in there – but no luck. She just got cut open and is in a lot of pain as a result. She had some problem this afternoon with the morphine giving her a sick stomach – which made her scar hurt a lot – but they quickly gave her some medicine to help with that.

She is quite exhausted, and I think she was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of phone calls coming in – she respectfully asked that people wait for a couple of days before calling – it is difficult for her to hold the phone up to her head, and the neck brace really makes it hard for her to speak with any clarity. She is in good spirits, relatively – has been laying a few jokes on us, which is nice. She and I watched america’s funniest videos tonight, which was rad. We had a few chuckles together, then she got an A1 foot and hand massage from me. Not a bad evening. She does have some broken ribs, and a broken foot, which is already in a cast. She has a few lacerations, and some swelling here and there, but generally she is looking pretty good!

Joan was in the operating room pretty much all day. They said it was going to be a 2 hour session, but it took her until about 7pm to be released from recovery and into a room on the same floor that my mum is on. Her daughter and son in law, and her husband and his two children were all there to support her.

Tessa is currently en route from Cananananada. She and her boyfriend Steve are driving from Hinton (Manitoba? Alberta? I dunno) to Toronto where she is planning to get on an AA flight to Boston on the 19th (perhaps (hopefully) a day earlier). It will be very nice to have her here, and when I told my father she was en route today his eyes really lit up.

Speaking of family – there has been an amazing outpouring of support from blood family and friends family alike. I wish I could speak to you all more times during the day, but it’s just not possible. Hopefully this website will help keep the news flowing. Thank you all for your loving words, brownies, chicken dinners and prayers. As this all moves forward I think Tessa and Jim and I will be reaching out to all of you for help in some way or another.