Day 14 of Recovery - Happy Two Week Anniversary!

1:00 pm, June 26,2009: Seeing is believing! Due to meetings I could not stop in during the morning, and Melaku wanted to see Tesfaye again so I made arrangements to meet him there at 1 o'clock. When I arrived at his room and asked about how he was doing today, Nurse Jennifer told me he was doing quite well:though the clearing of fluid in his chest still was a challenge, she told me that earlier he had been up walking down the hall to the nursing station and back. I commented that I was sorry that I missed that , as I still had not seen him walk since the surgery. I asked Jennifer if there is any chance that he may do another walk while I am around, and she said if he feels like it he could do it right now. Tesfaye was game to walk again with me there and I was so excited when I heard that.

I waited anxiously as they started unhooking some of the tube connections in preparation for his walk, and then watched in amazement as I saw Tesfaye stand up and then begin to walk, carefully escorted by Nurses Jennifer and Judy. He walked quite slowly at first but then began to gain speed and confidence with each step. With coaching from the nurses he concentrated on walking tall and breathing correctly. As I thought back to Tesfaye's totally bent over condition before the surgery, I was truly overwhelmed to see him holding himself erect, with his head and eyes looking forward in a normal position like you or me. I captured him walking and standing erect both in movie mode and still photography mode. I figured that Tesfaye may not yet have a full understanding or appreciation of the magnitude of the change, so I played back the video footage of him walking, showed him some of the just taken still images of him standing next to me, and then found some pre-surgery images of him standing next to me. I don't know if that was his first realization of the immense difference in height and posture that the amazing surgery accomplished, but I could tell from the big smile that suddenly emerged on his face that there was no question that realization had hit him now. Melaku then had to leave to get to work, but Nanci was on her way also to see Tesfaye, so I waited for her before I left. When it came time to leave, the feeling of elation from having witnessed Tesfaye standing erect and walking was indescribable.

Late afternoon I received a call from Lise bringin me up to date about Tesfaye's condition, and while Tesfaye was making good overall progress she did mention that they still had to work hard to assist him with the clearing of his chest and had to get that under control to avoid a return stint in ICU. While she is confident that it will keep improving, she wanted me to be aware.

11:15 pm, June 26, 2009: After another wonderful Friday night dinner at our house with our friends the Smiths who are visiting from Montreal, my daughter Stephanie asked me to drop her off at her friend's house. After dropping her at a location only blocks from VGH I decided to pop in for a quick bedtime visit, even though he would likely be sleeping. Nurse Christine with her lovely bedside manner (all the nurses here in step down seem so nice) said that they had worked some more on improving his coughing and clearing of lung secretions and good progress was made in that regard. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully so I left after a very brief visit. All in all, I would say it was a very satisfying two week anniversary.