Docs finally came in, but I got tired of waiting and went ahead and sat him up and fed him.  He ate a whole can of Boost pudding, and without much coaxing! I gently cleaned his mouth with a toothette (sponge on a stick) and suctioned him out.  I showed the docs his incision and they said they would get general surgery to look at it. I asked them if we could get Mikie unhooked from his IV for a while so we could go smoke a cigarette.  Dr. Chandler’s eyes got kind of big and I laughed and told her I was only kidding, but if the smokers could go stand in front of the building with their IV stands we should be able to go for a little walk as well.  So we did, we cruised the halls for a while.  Mikie started to cough so I brought him back to his room and I gently cleaned out his mouth again, as it was a bit snotty.  He must be draining from his sinus’ a bit. We picked up a shave kit and came back to the room to write this entry to the blog.  If he ever gets sleepy on me I’ll clean him up and give him a shave.

It’s 1:15 PM and I don’t know when I will get home to fix that plumbing!

We decided to cruise on down to the nurses’ station and tell the boss to get us a couple of cans of that pudding every day. We bumped into Dr. Barker (remember, Dr. Gloom was the name Lorraine gave him).  He remembered us and asked how we were doing and if they took everything out.  I told they did and that he got a new VA shunt (remember, that means ventriculo-atrial, from the brain to the heart).  I did tell him we were working on a little problem keeping bile down, but that we expected that to be worked out soon and then to be on our way home. He commented that we sure couldn’t go home with a problem like that.  I didn’t argue with him but if this doesn’t clear up soon I intend to take us home anyway.  I wanted so badly to ask him when we would be getting the tracheotomy but just couldn’t bring myself to do it. (Remember, he was the one that said if we went with the surgery that Mikie would likely not come off the ventilator and would likely need a tracheotomy as well. It was great that Mikie was wide awake breathing completely on his own with not even a gurgle. He spoke directly with Mikie and I think he expected Mikie to speak back to him as he claimed he had before.

Mikie has been off the suction since 11 AM and only has an occasional hiccup.  He looks and sounds great. I have him close to me over here in the corner by me and the laptop.  BBN is playing some very pretty hymns and I think he is getting into it, occasionally clapping his hands and shaking his toy.