One Week In
The absolute highlight of my day today was getting a call from Dad that felt like a normal check-in call—where Dad’s checking up on me as much as I’m checking up on him! He was breathing much more easily, evenly, and sounded just like himself. Dad confirmed that he was able to get a full 5 hours of sleep last night, which made all the difference. As he was falling asleep last night, he shared that he was able to feel his diaphragm really working again for the first time since the operation and drifted off focusing just on breathing in and breathing out.
After that good rest, Pop woke up and said he felt “out of the dragon’s mouth.” The medical team wanted him to do 3 laps today around the ICU today and he knocked out 2 of them first thing this morning—almost 1,000 ft! Weaning off extra oxygen is also progressing well, so all signs continue to point toward the Stepdown Unit by week’s end. Dad will likely still be in the hospital for quite some time, but in the Stepdown Unit he will be able to move around more independently and with way fewer tubes trailing behind him!
What made today’s conversation feel especially reassuring is that Dad had enough energy to share with me a good story: about his toes. As some of you may know, one of my dad’s closest friends Lex Alexander is actually no fan of Duke University. (If you have no idea why Lex would feel this way, check out the first chapter of the brilliantly titled To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever.) So to give Lex a hard time—and also to get in the spirit of being a Duke patient—Pop got his toenails painted Duke blue a couple of weeks ago. The Duke staff thought it was awesome:
But all the walking Dad had to do in pre-hab did not keep this pedicure in good shape, so Susie cornered him and removed the badly chipping polish the Sunday before he was listed. It turns out when you remove bright royal blue toenail polish, your toenails retain a certain bluish purple hue for several days afterwards. Dad got donor lungs so quickly after being listed that his toenails were still purple—and each new doctor that has seen them stops short. “Is he getting oxygen to his toes? Is he developing Raynaud's disease?!" Fortunately the nursing staff quickly sets them straight. And now Pop makes sure to keep socks on at all times as not to alarm any doctors further!
On a related note, Pop says the entire nursing staff at Duke Medical has been just awesome. Susie has mentioned several times also how amazing they have been through this whole experience. Exactly one week ago, I got a text from her saying, “Duke just updated: your dad is in the procedure room.” To get him to where he today, now only 7 days later…there really are no words…well, except maybe these words (sorry Lex ♥):
