I now carry Ted’s phone with me. I can play music from his play lists while in the room with him and answer the occasional calls that come in as well. This week I received a call from one of the companies that he has done service for since I can’t even remember when. She said she had heard that Ted was doing better, so she decided to call to see if he would answer. I almost giggled. I mean, yay for thinking that better was that he was home and/or could at least take calls.

I had to infuse the reality that our current “better” was that he wasn’t maxed out on the ventilator and they were not talking end game currently. That movement toward better is not a straight line, but a series of going in all directions and hoping the aggregate of everything was in the right direction.

Today, I had to manage those expectations for myself as well. There were several factors that played into my feeling of being on the ‘struggle bus’ today.

Work was a bit of a challenge in the morning and then Devin and I went to go get our covid booster jabs and that took longer than we could have anticipated. Every problem person seemed to be in our line.

The holdup caused me to: 1. miss picking up the home made cookies that friends had made and I was to pick up, and 2. made me miss the morning rounds with the Dr, Pharmacist, Nurse, and Nutritionist. Luckily, the Dr. knows me enough that I caught her later at her computer and we had a quick review. Not the same, but it was all I was going to get.

Someone took the recliner chair out of our room. I figured someone needed it worse than me for the day, so I didn’t say anything.

I caught myself looking at all the photos on the wall in his room that I had printed of our camping and playing and skiing and it just felt like those days are so unattainable at this moment. Oh, I believe we can get there, but not on a straight line to be sure.

His stats have pretty much been holding steady, but daily, he just looks smaller and smaller. The surgeon came in this evening and said he would perform the tracheotomy tomorrow morning around 7:30 am. On a long shot, I asked if I could watch the surgery. With the look he gave me, you would have thought that I had asked if he was going to do the surgery in the nude. I guess people don’t normally make those requests, but hey, I was awake for my surgery a few years back, so why wouldn’t I want to be in the room with his too? (if you feel like reading about that day, it is at: https://www.thelaughyouknow.com/the-surgery/)

A big NO to that request to watch.

Here’s hoping Ted has an uneventful night, a good surgery in the morning and things progress in the little steps that are in the right direction.

Have a good night and thanks again for all of your continued support.

Love Sally