Darren started texting me about 8:00am. He told me he ate breakfast (couldn’t remember what though) and said that he would not be done with his  therapy until 3:30pm. I called the Rehab Hospital and left a message with his Social Worker. She called me back and we set up a meeting for later today.  I told Darren about the meeting and he was glad we were going to get some answers today.

The Social Worker came into the room while Darren was in the room as well- so Darren was there while we discussed everything. OT and PT are pretty confident in his skills. He does need to do some kind of exercise when he gets out – whether it will be formal therapy or not is yet to be determined. I know when Darren comes home – he is going to take his son to school in the morning and we are going to hit the Mall and walk every morning.

We discussed his plan to get discharged. Darren will definitely need to have extensive Speech Therapy due to his severe short term memory loss. He is back to asking me the same questions over and over again (he did this before surgery) and he does not seem to really taste his food. Nothing sounded good for supper — he takes a few bites and shoves it away no matter what he is eating. Nothing tastes really good to him. He does prefer his Orange Gatorade over water though.

But here – it is… The plan is to have him discharged THIS FRIDAY!!! 

We celebrated by playing UNO and Darren won two rounds and I won one round and we were about to play a third round when his cousins James and Deborah called to chat with him.

Darren made a cake in his OT today- but he does not remember baking it. He remembers following the recipe. He said he biked again- about 15 miles.

Darren has overcome the chair/bed alarms. He has unhooked them and he hid them in his dresser. I found them putting some clothes away. So I made him hold them while I took the picture. He said “Hurry up before they find out where I hide them!”

Here he is thinking about what he wanted to tell me. He is using that eyebrow- that is for sure!!!

The doctor came in to check him out- he glared at the McDonald’s on his tray. Oh well… Darren only ate one cheeseburger and no fries. He checked him out and asked about his head pain. He asked about his tremors… yes, they are still there- and will continue to be there. Darren has accepted it.

We said “See you later” but after we got a good picture of him and his son. He really had a good day. His headache is still there, but not as often.

Darren stayed in bed all day. He finally ate some pizza around 5:30pm. He did not eat breakfast or lunch. He sent me texts that said “I want to come home.” Which broke my heart.

I found out that he had a fever last night of 101.7. But he did not have one during the day, that was until around 7pm then it was 99.7. This is normal during the healing process. But it made him uncomfortable and grouchy. (Typical MAN?)

While we were there he napped for about an hour or so. I brought him pizza and Gatorade and his son thought he needed M&Ms which he ate the whole bag of.

His sister called and they talked for a short time. We ended up watching a rerun of AFV and he laughed a little. He then buried himself under his covers and complained of a headache. So we took the leftover pizza to the nurses  and stopped by WalMart on our way out of town.

By the time I pulled in our driveway he was texting me again.

I will be talking to the doctors tomorrow to see when he can come home. He said he doesn’t even want a “pass” to go to his son’s Blue and Gold banquet next Sunday.

We got Darren a pillow in the shape of a brain:

Darren told me more about his day today. He rode a bike and played Wii Bowling and used the Wii Balance Board for some therapy which are things we have at home that he can use after therapy to gain strength. He refused to tell me anything about speech therapy. (He hates that part of his day!)

His Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy are each an hour long once a day and his Speech Therapy is 30 min twice a day. He is not sure what will happen this weekend. He knows his cousins that are coming to visit and knows we will be back to visit. Darren’s son and I also brought him a piece of Red Velvet Cake and at first he was trying to be funny and said it wasn’t good. Then he shoved the rest of it in his mouth.

He tried to fiddle with his chair alarm but he got caught!

Thank you for the healing prayers for him.
Hard to believe it was just one week ago he had his final surgery!  Wow!
Hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day. The only thing that would have made this day better would be in Darren was home with us, but we are confident that will be soon.

Darren’s second day of rehab was “everything” he said. They started his day by getting him up at 7am. He met with the Psychiatrist and the Occupational Therapy and the Physical Therapy and Speech. He is aware of his memory loss.

Darren ate breakfast and lunch with the same two men from yesterday at their table.

When we arrived they had moved him to a different room because he has a chair alarm and a bed alarm. I guess he is a wanderer.

He said taking a shower last night felt great. He thought he had washed his hair though.

Darren had a really bad headache again but after taking meds and sitting quietly for awhile he perked up. He watched two episodes of “Honey Boo Boo” and he said “Oh these are reruns – remember this episode.” It was good to hear him laugh.

No one has spoke to me about the plans for his stay. I am contacting the RN we spoke to at the hospital about this.

He does not remember his parents being there on Tuesday. He did remember his son and I being there yesterday. He was really worried that we wouldn’t come tomorrow. I reminded him that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and of course we would be there. He said “well, can’t do anything about that.”

Darren said he felt OK and that where he is staying is OK. He knows it is for a short time. He was more aware of things tonight.