MUCH BETTER

The day started with sunshine that was a good indication of how the day would be.  It takes a special type of friend to drive Dave at 6 AM so Todd could stay with me.  Thanks Tom.  Caregiver Cindy came early, but even so we had already had a call from Dave saying he was going into the “room” soon and expected to be in recovery about 9:30.  Sure makes a difference being the first one of the day.  Todd had him home before 11:00. 

The stint had been blocked so that was probably the cause of most of his misery the last few weeks.  Now the new stint is stainless steel so that should help.  Hmmm, I didn't ask the “shelf life” of this stint.  After fluid and a snack he went to bed and slept almost 5 hours.  That is probably the longest stretch of undisturbed sleep in weeks.  Already he looks less yellow.  (How many of you remember the commercial - you wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.)   An expected sore throat makes his voice raspy.  Thinking what went up and down his throat makes me want to gag.  (This from someone with a permanent tube down her throat.)   Saying he had an endoscopy sounds better. 

Continuing on the sunny day theme was my BCI session.  When I had scheduled it Dave was going in for his first listeria infusion.  I thought it would be a good distraction and make the time pass for me while he was in for an all-day session.  Having a 93% success on the calibration section last time put some pressure to duplicate that.  Just after I started, the cuff in my throat that makes the air go to my lungs rather than out of my mouth, started to leak.  It was a very small amount that made a slight noise on each breath.  Being the stubborn/bull headed person that I am I continued on thinking I can do it.  Well I could not; the score was a dismal 73%.  We added some more air to the cuff and started over.  Time now to FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS.  Next round was much better with a 91%.  YEAH, now onto spelling real words. 

Starting with level 4, I was able to quickly go through it.  Moving on to level 5, I was successful even though Dave came home in the middle.  Betts paused the computer and when we resumed I was able to go right back.  That was very satisfiyng and something I had wondered about.  Each session had been in a quiet calm atmosphere.  How successful would I be in a more normal environment?  Today certainly tested that. 

After finishing level 5, I went on to free spelling.  This was my opportunity to spell whatever I wanted.  It followed the same format, letters would be flashed in random order and I was to FOCUS on the letter I wanted.  This time the phrase was my choice, and it was the first time I had needed to use the space symbol.  On the two sentences I only had to back space once! This time I had enough sense to stop when I was beginning to get tired so I ended on a positive note.  The only negative was that I had finished everything.  Betts will soon be going to an international conference so I hope she will come with new ideas and the team will find more ways for me to play.  As you can see it was a sunny day in many ways.