Day 6 in the hospital

Today was Day 6 in the hospital. After a carotid artery ultrasound, he was moved from ICU to a private room. We are now on the 11th floor of the hospital. I think this is the top floor.

We were worried about this move because we thought he still needed the really close monitoring, and we didn’t know what to expect in a private room. We hired an extra nurse for tonight to make sure he got the care he needed.

After spending the day in his room, we are calm now that he is receiving excellent care. There are nurses, physical therapists, doctors, and all sorts of people coming in all the time to do some special thing.

He had a really good session of physical therapy today, with him sitting on the side of the bed by himself for a minute or two (bookended by the therapist and her strong male aid), standing twice and lasting for several seconds both times, getting arms and legs exercised, encouraging him to do the moves, but aiding him if he wasn’t able to fully yet, and more. He showed a lot of progress and really put honest effort into it.

He said several words today – one word answers to questions, but answers don’t have to be lengthy, do they? He tried to say other things but we couldn’t understand. He kept putting his hands up near his nose, concerning us, because he still has the nasal feeding tube in. We explained to him that he needed to leave it alone, but then watched him like a hawk because his hand would come up over and over. We explained what the tube was for, and that it would be removed once he showed he could swallow reliably. I also mentioned at one point that if he managed to get it out, they would have to put it back in. Hopefully, that and the extra nurse watching him tonight will do the trick.

The carotid artery ultrasound showed plaque in both arteries, but not enough to cause a stroke or need surgery. They think the stroke was caused by atrial fibrillation plus really slow heartbeats per minute to the point of stopping for some seconds (this sounds similar to MY problem in February! He is now scheduled for a brain CT tomorrow we think, to make sure there is no bleeding. Next they will install a pacemaker (the second in our family in two months!) They think that the pacemaker and a blood thinner that they will start soon will give him the best chance going forward.

We went to the hospital today with all electronics in plastic bags. Brian even got us fancy bags for our cellphones especially made for protection during the water festival. It hangs around your neck, completely sealed. We made it to the hospital without incident. It started raining while we were there, making it really difficult to navigate on the way home through the throng of party-goers undeterred by the rain, all heading to Maya for drenching, dancing, listening to music, drinking until all hours, etc. I have honestly never seen anything like this.

Three lanes of vehicles on either side of the big highway and several lanes of motorcycles and motor scooters, each holding from one to four people – and animals! all darting in and out of the lanes, between the cars, nose to tail all traveling at a high rate of speed. Truly amazing to watch. And then a gazillion people walking on both sides and filling up all available space. The rain was causing the streets to flood, and water was half way up my shoes when we got back to our condo. Thankfully, though the entrance to the condos was full of revelers, no one shot us.

This was Day One of the Songkran new year’s water festival. We have two days not only LIKE, but exceeding what I saw today. Hard to imagine. It’s a challenge to travel, and if we didn’t need to, we wouldn’t. We ordered a Mexican dinner to be delivered this evening, but were notified the order was cancelled due to the Grab motorcyle rider refusing to deliver in the pouring rain. I don’t blame him. Luckily, we had some chicken and some canteloupe left over from yesterday.

Here’s to Day Two of the Water Festival. I really hope we don’t get doused because Harvey’s room is like a meat locker.