Getting better

We left Donna sleeping last night and couldn't wait to see her this morning. Already Louie is in trouble - visiting hours for the CVICU do not start until 9:00 a.m. and he was there by 7:30 a.m. A Nurse Ratchett Twin (not quite that bad) set him straight and made him leave the unit but not until he was able to see that they took the respirator out! Yea! Donna can now communicate - she is alert and whispering and I'm sure she'll have plenty to say when visiting hours allow us in. The report this morning is that her kidneys are working better now (hooray!) and they are still concerned about the possibility of infection in the fluid that surrounded her heart. So far, no word on the test results and there is also the liver functions that were not as they should be. So, we expect more doctors and tests today.

Last night Louie told Donna that at this rate they might as well buy a house on the lake near ours and just live in Memphis - she gave a "thumbs up" sign. It seemed that even though she couldn't talk she was being funny. Her hand gestures allowed me to understand that she was asking a question - "had she had back surgery?" Apparently she thought that all her back pain had finally required surgery but we explained it was her heart and she seemed a little confused about what happened, understandably. By playing a game similar to Charades, I was able to understand most of what she was asking but in the end, she stumped me. Something she was asking, I couldn't figure out at all. That's when they gave her something to help her sleep and she drifted off. Hopefully later this morning we will finally know what she wanted or maybe it wasn't important.