More Progress, ...and appreciation

Jon had his old trach replaced with a new, smaller one and got permission to have ice chips today. The trach replacement was no fun--I got to watch--but it only hurt a few minutes. He couldn’t get enough of the ice chips though. He was supposed to let them melt in his mouth but he has a touch of his mother in him and he crunches them! So I doled them out 2 at a time :-) I can also attest to the fact that he can burp! He went through the first cup that I gave him so fast that he needed to have his shoulders covered. I’m thinking this is all preparation for the swallowing test on Wednesday.

The respiratory specialist says that his treatments are less intense and he doesn’t need much suctioning afterward. Another sign of progress. When talking with Carol on the phone on the way home she mentioned that he had a chest x-ray today but no one mentioned it at the hospital so I'm not sure why or what the results were.

Everyone else has gotten him to smile about something and today was finally my turn. I was relaying the children’s Christmas pageant at church. It was entitled the “Mixed Up
Christmas Story” narrated by an absent minded professor--I hope I’m recalling this correctly. When the narrator got a fact wrong, a child “in the audience” called out to correct him. There were such factual errors such as a hotel/motel sign outside the stable; elves came to see what was going on and when the correction was made the stagehands came out and replaced their caps with shepherd crooks; supposedly Mary had a baby girl and when corrected the stagehands came and traded the girl doll for a boy doll; the sky was lit by a UFO but was corrected by turning the board over to reveal a large yellow star. What brought the chuckle from Jon was when I mentioned that instead of 3 wise men there were 3 tourists who came to take pictures and they marched down the center aisle pretending to take pictures of the church and the congregation! There were more mistakes but you’ve got the picture..no pun intended.

Generally speaking, he seemed in a better mood and more like the old Jon. He did ask a lot for head scratchings and tolerated the leg exercises and the application of lotion on his feet and hands. When he got his voice back a few days ago I had suggested that he not forget his “please” and “thank you’s” -- he might get better service. When I left tonight he upped the ante and told me how much he appreciated what I did for him!