Wednesday

After not much sleep on Tuesday night, I got out of bed around 6 and called the hospital to see how Fred had done the night before. He had done some voluntary movement and was being taken into his second CT scan.

We got to the hospital and the team of doctors made their rounds in the morning. The comparative scans were good and the brain swelling had not increased and he still did not need surgery.

They started to reduce his sedation and he slowly started moving his limbs and opening his eyes. Later that day they removed his breathing tube and sutured up his right ear which was really scraped up in the fall.

The day was a blur of different doctors and case workers, but he was making good progress and would talk some. He had not recognized me at all and thought this was his avalanche accident from 1995.

There were no visiting hours from 2:30-4:30, so we went out to get me a change of clothes and some food. By the time we came back at 4:30 and walk into his room, he was sitting up in bed with his legs over the side like he was about to stand up. I called to the nurses and they came over and got him back into bed. After that, he had his bed alarm turned on to alert the nurses if he tried to get out of bed and they moved his bed to a room where they could see him from the station in the middle of the night.

Trying to get out of bed, yelling at the nurse to stop touching him and get away from him were all good signs that Fred's stubborn nature was still very much intact!