Everything is better with Dad!

Tonight John is hanging out watching tv and eating ice with dad. It is great to all be under the same roof, even if that is a hospital roof.

Friday night John so steadfastly refused to sleep that it wasn't until nearly 5am that he finally dozed off and of course was wakened at 6:30am by the resident who was checking on him. I thought he would take a good long nap on Saturday but no 1 1/2 hours and he was again begging for shoes and a walk.

We spent a very long Saturday walking the hospital hallways, sidewalks and even the parking garage. John made sure that we visited each place in the hospital that we had ever been with dad including running through the 7th floor parking garage checking all the black SUV's to see if it was dad. A very sad little boy ate his food and took his meds and health wise improved throughout the day but when night came it was a very sad little boy who finally gave up the search for dad and drifted off to sleep.

He slept very well through the night and woke this morning with both a hearty appetite and a much improved disposition. After breakfast he told me something was wrong with his hearing aid and then I found that the battery had died - the other hearing aid battery died Saturday morning, so this left us with only our sign. Prior to this moment I had been fairly impressed with how much sign I knew expressively and he knew receptively. Within 15 minutes of no hearing aids I felt like a very inept communicator and came to the further revelation of how desperately I need to be better at this.

Today's big news is that if John can tolerate a formula increase tonight from 500 ml to 750 ml that he can go home tomorrow. We're excited!

John at 2 bites of sugar cookie for lunch and was ready to walk. Later when I told him that dad was coming he was happy and somewhat incredulous, he was certainly happy to see him and thrilled when we went to the cafeteria for supper. He ate and ate and ate and more than made up for the dismal performance at lunch.

Afterwards he walked with dad, got to go for a wagon ride and even met Jen, one of our favorite nurses who used to work here and now was here visiting a patient from her clinic. It has been great to see everyone, it truly seems that our tour is nearing completion and that we are ready to return home. We'll see what tomorrow brings.