Recovery Room:Day One

6:45 am June13: Well so much for extra sleep. After going to bed sometime after 1 am I leave my cell phone on next to my bed in case the Hospital calls and needs me to come in. That call comes at 6:45, saying that Tesfaye is starting to awaken and they think he would appreciate a familiar face and perhaps could use an interpreter for some of the questions they need to ask him.

I decide that before bothering my friend Melaku at such an early hour on Saturday I would first shower and head to the VGH myself to see what the situation is and whether interpretation would be needed yet. When I arrived there I saw that the Recovery Room had thinned out and that Tesfaye was barely awake and aware. We did make eye contact and he clearly recognized me, but he was in pain and most uncomfortable with the large breathing tube down his throat. They were going to attend to his wound dressings and told me to go have breakfast and then come back. After walking around the neighbourhood I ended up on Broadway and ate a pretty substantial breakfast at the Holiday Inn.

I walked back to see Tesfaye at the Hospital; it's such a long walk down long corridors from the elevator to the Recovery Room. Tesfaye is heavily drugged and sleepy from the pain medication, and it seems to be having a negative effect on the CO2 elimination abilities of his lungs. This is compounded by the fact that his previously restricted lungs have to learn how to operate in their radically new position in Tesfaye's more upright chest.The same will apply to the rest of his organs that have now been freed up from their bent over and compressed state.

The great news is that Tesfaye's feet and hands and fingers and toes are all responding to touch and he is clearly able to wiggle them. But Tesfaye is also gesturing that the big breathing tube is bothering him and he wants to know when it will be out. They hope to be able to start removing it around 1 pm that afteroon, so I call Melaku to come to the hospital for around noon. Melaku is doing it just as a friend, as he is not an official interpreter. Melaku is the Ethiopian journalist whom we met at Fassil restaurant the second night after Tesfaye arrived in Vancouver;he is the one who broadcast on his Sunday morning Amharic language program an interview that he did with me and Tesfaye.

In the meantime, Dr. Marcel Dvorak pops in to look a Tesfaye looking rested,relaxed and casual in his shorts; he talks to Tesfaye and there appear to be no issues, so after chatting for a while he has to head off to Surrey for a "pony" party for one of his children's birthdays. Marcel really has such a nice manner about him. Melaku eventually arrives and it does make conversation or questions for Tesfaye somewhat easier, but Tesfaye is still drowsy and anxious for the breathing tube to come out.However,his CO2 levels are still not where they need to be. Melaku and I go to Earl's to grab some lunch. It's another beautiful,warm and sunny day in Vancouver; Haley and Jim end up joining us for a drink there, and we have the opportunity to learn more about Melaku and about Ethiopia from Melaku. It is very interesting to hear his political perspective on Ethiopia; as an outspoken journalist he has been imprisoned a few times before he left Ethiopia, the longest stay being one year! Anyway, we left around 4 pm as they said it was unlikely that they would be able to remover the tube until much later, if at all, and I had to get to a haircut and then go for an early farwell dinner to Gothams as my youngest son Justin was leaving for Shanghai on Sunday, followed by a wedding reception for a young relative of mine that had eloped.Justin and Stephanie go to see Tesfaye after our dinner while Nanci and I make our way to the wedding reception. Around 11:30 pm after we leave the reception, Nanci and I stopped by the hospital to say goodnight to Tesfaye. He had the Recovery room area all to himself. He still could not wait to get the breathing tube removed, but that would have to wait now until the next day.