Happy Thanksgiving!

Dad's progress

I'm told that dad walked up and down the hallway with a walker today! That's big!

Last week at the end of the first week they estimated that he'd go home in 6 to 8 weeks. I didn't expect him to be up on his feet bearing weight with a walker this soon. They are always surprised at his strength in his limbs. With a little luck, he'll go home sooner :)

The 81 year old surgeon who my sister has worked for the past 30 years and is a close family friend and assisted in this last surgery, did dad's first bypass 20 years ago, is getting married on January 24th and they want dad their.

Yes, I know, 81 years old and assisted....he is amazing. Three docs in their practice do what he did solely alone, each different specialty, years ago. They have him assist because of his skill and knowledge. He stayed in the O.R. all 16 hours of dad's surgery because he had the "blueprint" in his head of the rerouted arteries from 20 years prior.

Dad update

Dad is doing well and continues to breathe without the vent or oxygen! He is actually ready to be transferred back to the 2nd place on Monday as they have an outstanding physical rehab as compared to a regular hospital in the way that they will see him every day for 2 hours a day, where in a hospital they may come 3 times a week for 30 minutes or an hour.

He took an "absence of leave" for two days...meaning, he wasn't himself at all and mostly slept and when he was awake he wasn't his typical character or behavior. I watched as mom tried to wake him on Friday evening. It took 30 minutes and then he was kind of agitated during his awake time and confused and paranoid.

Saturday morning before mom got to the hospital, one of the nurses told him he slept for two days. When mom got there, he told her what the nurse told him and said, "why didn't you wake me up?"

I know the physical therapy will be torture in the beginning for him. I'm hoping the special care place will follow what they are supposed to do in the way of maintaining his current state and not give him anything unnecessary.

It seems we won't be having Thanksgiving. I've cooked every year since I can remember but mom doesn't want anything to do with it. She plans on spending the day with him in the hospital. I offered to cook on Saturday instead of turkey day and she turned her nose up. But she's home around 6:30 p.m. anyway and I can't understand why we can't have some kind of celebration. The way I see it, we're lucky and have something to celebrate.

My girlfriend's all black German shepherd started having her puppies this morning at 9:15 a.m. She was up to 8 puppies by mid-afternoon. They've offered a puppy to me and I would love one but don't know how I possibly could. We'll see. I'm impartial to shepherds as I had a really intelligent, loyal one when I was first married. They own the male that sired her. Two really wonderful dogs.photo taken at 12:30 p.m. - 7 puppies at that time - one under her thigh and one under the puppy in the middle.

Seasons Change

Dad has been off the ventilator for 10 days now and is doing well. He still has a little bit of a road ahead of him, but things are looking up. Once he is really stable we can then work on physical rehab. It's been 7 long months and he'll need rehab.

On the work front, there were layoffs this past Monday. I work for one of those companies that is getting a lot of press these days in regards to that industry and stocks and such. 500 layoffs this month alone and more to come throughout 2009.

I've been very busy with college admission stuff and am thankful that my kid has a really great guidance counselor who has been very helpful and very complimentary of the kid.

The beau's birthday is this month and I never know what to get him. Ugh!