Sunday, August 17th

Night and Day.

Yesterday was a good day all around.

I got up early and moved tons of stuff out of the bedroom to prepare for her move into the hospital bed. Then I met Joel down in Campbell to pickup the free twin bed. We moved the hospital bed into the bedroom and I called the Fire Department to request help for moving Susie.

They showed up what seemed like 3 minutes later! It turns out that they were just coming back from the store, so they just stopped by - heh.

3 minutes later, we had her moved to the hospital bed - quite painlessly and super fast. They were very nice to her.

We then moved the king bed out and got Susie into position. Then we moved the twin bed in - right next to her.

After a brief rest, Susie had a pretty remarkable day.
Bob was reading her a story and she was listening and smiling at all the appropriate places. Extremely few words that only came with much effort, but facial expressions (are you nuts?) and smiles that you know is actually a laugh.


Even though it sometimes looks like she isn't listening to you or can't even hear you, she can. She reacts in meaningful ways to the things you say.

I told her how happy she has made my life, how lucky I was to have met and married her. How much of a wonderful wife she is and that she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She smiled a huge smile and squeezed my hand while I cried uncontrollably.

Liz and Andrea brought Val over to say hi and Susie totally brightened up when she saw Val. What a wonderful reaction! Joy! She waved at Val, gave her a high-five, and even a *POUND*!. She even said "Hi Val!".

Sally's friend Marta also stopped by and had a great visit with her.

Gwenn and Colin came over for dinner and they had a great visit, too! Lots of responses - rolling her eyes, smiling at jokes, listening to the entire conversation.

Then some pain started to set in, so we gave her some liquid pain meds and she went to sleep for the whole night.

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Today, it's been the total opposite. Sleeping quite deeply all day. I could barely wake her enough to change her and to attempt to feed her some medicine. She never actually swallowed the medicine - it must have drooled out a long time after I gave it to her (swallowing is sometimes hard, and she just holds it in her mouth). She's opened her eyes a few times when I come in, but is not responding like she was on Saturday. Maybe she's tired out from the day before. Hopefully, we will get some more days like yesterday.

I'm about to tell my manager that I can't leave her side.