Day 7 Recovery - Happy One Week Anniversary!

Friday, June 19th,2009: It is hard to believe that it was one week ago today that I was waking Tesfaye up at 4:00 am to get ready to be at VGH Admissions by 5:30 am. I remember how tense it was waiting for the surgery updates throughout that very long day. Well, thanks to our wonderful VGH Spinal Surgery team, Tesfaye came through that very complicated corrective back surgery with remarkable, life-altering results. Now he just has to get through this temporary bump in his road to recovery, and I believe he is on his way.

9:45 am visit: I really have to start getting to bed earlier; I don't think I have gotten to sleep before 3;30 am anytime this week. Anyway, as planned, Melaku called me around 9:00 to arrange to meet up with me for a visit to Tesfaye at the hospital. I quickly showered and hurried off to meet him there, hoping to see another day of improvement for Tesfaye. When I called into the ICU unit to get approval to enter, they asked me to wait a while as the physiotherapist was there working with him. I abide by the request, but at the same time was concerned that I had to get downtown to a meeting and did not want to miss an opportunity to perhaps finally see Tesfaye sitting up if not standing. So I called back after waiting around 10 minutes and pleaded that I have to leave soon and would dearly love to have a chance to see my son going through some physio before I go; happily, they said to come in. Melaku and I gingerly approached Tesfaye's bed and lo and behold he was sitting up in a chair beside his bed! Nurse Mary, who was on day duty with him again, and the physiotherapist Jocelyn helped him manoeuvre into a sitting up position in his chair, but eventually he starting slipping in his chair,and so they stood him up and put him back in bed. Overall, he was doing quite a bit better today - he was breathing with even less assist from the machine, his temperature was down. bowels were moving. Tesfaye also communicated to Melaku in Amharic wrtitng with his clipboard about something that was ailing him. As we bid Tesfaye goodbye and walked down the long corridor towards the elevators, Melaku commented that Tesfaye is unique, not your typical Ethiopian male in terms of communicating personal things; he is actually quite intrigued by him.

Late in the afternoon I was very happy to get a call from Lise with an update. She confirmed that he is doing better and while not over the hump, they are hopeful can get the tube out by Monday. The sitting and standing earlier in the day definitely was quite tiring for him, but he is a strong and determined young man.

7:10 pm June 19: On our way for a rare Friday night out dinner alone with, Nanci and I stopped at the hospital to see Tesfaye. As the 7:30 nursing changeover from Nurse Mary to Nurse Terry was about to happen, they admonished us that we could not stay too long, so we had a short but sweet visit with Tesfaye and told him that we would return after dinner. Nanci had brought his ipod for him to listen to, and so we set it up with the portable ipod speaker unit and put on some Amharic music for him to listen to, which he seemed to enjoy and appreciate.

10:30 pm June 19: After a very good dinner at Quattro's we went back to VGH to say goodnight to Tesfaye. Nurse Terry was on top of things, with an assist from Nurse Angela.We had a very nice visit with Tesfaye for almost an hour. He kindly asked about how Nanci's mother Rhoda is doing; Rhoda is recovering from serious heart surgery she underwent a couple of days ago in Montreal. Nanci told him that she has something in common with Tesfaye in that she too has a breathing tube down her throat and is not very happy with that. Tesfaye also tried to communicate some other things with us, initially by hand gestures which was then augmented by him trying to write things in English on his clipboard. The experience was somewhat reminiscent of the few times I played the game of Charades many years ago, but eventually we deciphered what he was trying to say. Most noteworthy were two requests that he had: he wants a mirror to see himself, and he wants physiotherapy. In terms of a mirror, as a substitute I showed him a number of pictures I had taken of him on my camera, which seemed to satisfly that request. It is good that he is keen to have physiotherapy (it is not the first time he has specifically asked for it), but we really have to get him weaned off the breathing machine to be able to go full bore with the physiotherapy. But it is a good sign that he is anxious to get it underway.