Kissing Many Things Goodbye Today! And a Great Big HELLO!!!!!!

Today they removed Linda's trach and catheter, and since she passed her swallowing test, we expect to see her nasogastric tube (NG tube) go, too!

This whole time, Linda's been receiving nutrition either through her IV or through her NG tube, but now they're saying she may get ACTUAL FOOD tonight for dinner since she's passed the swallowing test today.

Beforehand, the nurse explained that for the swallow test, they would take her to the x-ray department and feed her radioactively-tagged foods of varying textures. As she swallowed the foods, they watch on the scans to see if they go down properly and not into her lungs, etc. I joked with her, "Wow Linda, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that you get to eat real food! The bad news is that it's all radioactive." She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't care!" with a big goofy smile. Yay, Linda! It's good to see her sense of humor is back.

Other big news, maybe the biggest, is that Linda seems to be making and retaining new memories quite well now. It's literally like she "woke up" some time over the last few days. She's remembering conversations about her rehab choices, and which tests and medications she's had, and when her kids and grandkids have been in to see her, and everything else that's happened. She has no recollection from before the weekend, and it's unlikely she will remember that, but that's pretty normal. And really, most of that stuff was awfully unpleasant. If she had to "lose" some time from her life, I can't think of three crummier weeks! We'll just chalk that up to taking out the trash, and move on. ;-)

I asked her if she knew that she is doing much better than everyone has expected her to, and she said, "I figured I must be, because anytime someone comes in who doesn't see me every day they say, 'WOW, you look really great!!!!!'" Hee hee! Yep, she really is looking good.

She says she's still pretty overwhelmed by the hospital routine (which is essentially all new to her) but that she may be ready for visitors sometime soon. Keep checking here and we'll keep you posted. I know a lot of folks want to come and see her, so we'll try to get that moving as soon as she's up to it. You guys are really neat people! Linda's blessed to have so many people praying for her, caring about her and checking up on her :-)

We believe that Linda will be moved tomorrow. Of course, nothing's ever sure in a hospital setting until after it's done, but that's what they're saying today. They're not saying where she's going yet, but the smart money at this point is on the LTAC that Davin described yesterday. We'll keep you updated as we find out what's happening.