Vanilla Shake

            Well, I splurged at lunch and ordered a milkshake for dessert. To this point, I’ve only had one cheesecake; every other time I’ve ordered fruit plate for dessert. Jim told me this morning that he had a strawberry shake last night. My vanilla shake was soooo good. And right on the cup it says:

 “real ice cream + dairy fresh milk + sweet vanilla= pure genius. Milkshakes are delicious—it’s mathematically proven, you know.”

[Shout out to Keepin’: how’s their math?] You know, 4 out of 3 people don’t understand math.

            And now the David report. David had a strong start this morning. He walked about 10 steps and then practiced moving from chair to bed for several minutes. But then he vomited, which was discouraging to both of us.

            They decided to do a second LP (lumbar puncture). They are concerned about the slurred speech and hyper-reactive reflexes. They want to double-check for leukemia in the CSF.

            The second LP was not successful. It’s hard to position David well, because of his abdominal incision. Tomorrow they’ll take him to another bed where they can position him better.

            Good news: they changed the “wound vac”, which is a sweet little device. It’s a sponge attached to a motorized vacuum that gently draws fluid away from the wound. Healing occurs much faster.

            David has swelling, particularly in his feet and ankles. This is due to a lack of the protein albumin. He doesn’t feel like eating, so they are going to continue to encourage him to eat, but will start a nutritional IV tonight. There are reasons we have digestive tracts, and it’s best not to bypass the process, but, he really needs the building blocks to heal, hence the IV supplement. It will run for 6 hours each night.

            It’s tough to have setbacks, even small ones. But everyday there are good things. My brand-new visiting teachers (see SICU Day Four) came, chatted, and listened to me. It felt so good to speak heart-to-heart with them. One had lived in Germany, so we swapped stories about how Germans have a different concept of time, much longer-range than Americans. American history is so short compared to theirs.

            I’m getting to understand David’s slurred speech better, and he is very patient. We’ve held hands several times today, sometimes to make sure I’m doing okay, and sometimes for his support.

            I am able to see how determined David is to move forward in his healing. A week ago, when I came, I was reluctant to be the “bad cop” and pester David about using his incentive spirometer and about getting up and moving around after surgery. But I’ve now learned that David is doing his best and really appreciates my reminders.

            And, the best: Today our missionary daughter, Annie, conference called from Taiwan. Jim, R’el, Peter, Matt, and Sam were all on the call, as well as David and I. Xiomara had to work, and we missed her.

            Annie is doing so well, learning to speak and read Mandarin and learning to love and serve the people she meets. What a wonderful Mother’s Day, to talk with all my children, and hear one year-old Andrew in the background.