Sitting up!

Dorothea seemed pretty tired when she woke up this morning... but shortly afterwards her nurse decided he wanted to change her bed into the sitting position. Well that woke her up! It has been awhile since we have seen her sitting up... I asked her how it felt and she smiled and said "funny!" I thought it was great though. I was there for probably another hour after that, and she was doing well sitting up. We were encouraging her to use her arms - she was putting a wet wash cloth on her forehead, and wiping her mouth. Small things, but they equal good exercise for her arms.

We discussed her tiredness with the respiratory tech. She says that she is not tired because of breathing (as I had thought). She believes (and we concur) that she is tired from lack of exercise. So... we let her know that we were going to be encouraging her much more to move her arms and legs. She understands what we talked about, and seemed to agree... not hopefully we can get her to do it. As I mentioned earlier, she was moving her arms much more than normal while she was sitting upright. Also, she was pulling her head off the pillow, which was great for her neck. She acknowledged that it hurts her to do that, but I think that is stiffness, not really pain. She let me comb her hair and we joked about putting pig tails in her hair. Her hair is longer than I have seen it in years...maybe ever...? I let her know that if she decides she wants her hair cut while she is still there, I will ask Don's mom (Nancy) to come up and cut her hair... so get ready Nancy!

So far she seems to be handling the peg tube feeding just fine. They are discussing removing the left chest tube today, hopefully that will happen.

I went in early today so that my Dad could sleep in a little bit...didn't work though, he came in 30 minutes later than normal.