Notes from Randy

Barbara thought she had better go to the office for a minute today, and of course there is a backlog of work so she ended up staying several hours. When she visited Randy this evening he told her that the doctor and anesthesiologist had visited him earlier. The doctor said if the anesthesiologist had not prepared Randy quickly for the surgery by cooling his heart and brain to 45 degrees the operation would not have been nearly as successful.

In other news Randy says he is not in any pain, and he is enjoying food, but "the hospital meatloaf makes me sick." (Personally just hearing "hospital meatloaf" makes me sick!) Tonight’s visitors included Helga, Tom and Joyce, Cory and Sandy Cummings, Paul and Kelly Hicken, Richard and Lenore Anderson. Tomorrow they may move him to yet another room, this time out of intermediate care.

When asked if he had a message for the blog readers he said, “I’m happy to be here and I’m thankful for everyone’s prayers and faith on my behalf.”

Music To Our Ears

This morning Matt helped Barbara set-up the MP3 player that was so kindly dropped off by one of Randy's band mates. He had pre-loaded the player with the band's own album. Barbara put the headphones on Randy and the first thing he said was , "Hey, our band sounds pretty good!" Soon he was in his own world singing along to the music. The rest of us couldn't hear the music, but it seem he was in tune, despite the hoarse voice.

Not much later, Matt, Karrie and Andrea got kicked out of the room by a nurse because David had shown up and the nurse felt that 5 groupies were too many when only 2 visitors are allowed at a time.

And so the music plays on...

Matt & Karrie

Tuesday Afternoon Update

This morning Randy greeted Barbara with "I'm so glad you're here!" With some help from the nurses he was able to stand and walk to a chair. He is eating better, and enjoying that. He is still complaining about the nurses not letting him sleep for longer periods.

He told Barbara how to retrieve messages from his cell phone, which is good since the mailbox was full. For all who have left messages, they may actually get checked today!

The morning visitors were Matt, Karrie, brother David and sister-in-law Jackie (granddaughter Riley), Andrea, and Nancy.

This afternoon, Kevin, April, Janell, and all 4 grandchildren came up. Unfortunately, the grandchildren are still not allowed to see him. They are trying to stay amused in the waiting room watching Return of the Jedi and playing games (from their "Grandma's Waiting Room Kit"), exploring the hallways, watching the construction out the window, and going for walks through the halls. Janell suggested that if Randy could walk out in the hallway, we could have grandchildren standing at the end waving to him, but he said the only way he could walk to the hallway was if we could carry him.

The nurse removed the 3 drainage tubes from his chest--one from the pleural cavity and two from the mediastinum cavity. They permitted Kevin and April to watch the process. It was rather painful for Randy. The instructions were, "Don't open your mouth and yell, hum instead. If you open your mouth you risk letting air into the pleural cavity." So Randy complied and hummed--louder and louder as she pulled and stitched. When he was allowed to open his mouth again his first word was "OUCH!" and he proceeded to tease the nurse about her knot-tying skills. The new goals are to get him up and walking more. They will take another chest x-ray to see if everything closed up o.k. after the tube removal. He passed the swallowing check and dietary restrictions are now lifted so he can have more choice in his menu. Kevin suggested we bring him some homemade applesauce (which we originally brought from Logan for the children), and he LOVES it. We will bring him some more.

Carol and Frank also stopped by for a visit and were pleasantly surprised to find the old Randy back. Travis, a former RK Young Electric employee, said "hi" on his way back from work. His discussion with Randy revealed that Randy has not lost any technical electrical knowledge.

That's about it for now. Progress may slow down for a while--there are lots of small steps to take. FYI, visitors are allowed in the IMCU except 7:00-8:30 AM and 7:00-8:30 PM. It is still limited to two visitors at a time.

Less frequent updates

For the benefit of those who check this blog frequently:

Randy is doing extremely well. With his rapidly improved (and improving!) condition, Andrea and I have moved back to our house in South Jordan. I've gone back to work, and we'll be checking in during the evenings. Since we're not in the waiting room with laptops at the ready, updates will probably be limited to once a day or so by the other siblings who are closer to the situation.