A Step in the Right Direction!

Yesterday was a VERY rough day.  Mom was in a lot of pain and seemed to have lost a lot of desire to get moving.  Her surgery had went well, but the surgeon had warned us that the day would be rough.  My sister had rode in to my Dad's work with him to fill out some paperwork, and I stayed in the room with my mom.  The morning did not go so well.  Mom was very sick from all of the pain medication and trying very hard to get off of it, but the pain was pretty intense.  Finally at about 2pm, the nurse told me that my mom would need to get up and sit on the side of the bed or else they were going to get her up involuntarily.  My mom was pretty sedated, but this rattled me.  I ordered up a smoothie (she had not eaten all day) and proceeded to rouse my mom.  I told her that though she did not feel like eating, she "must".  I also told her what the nurse had said.  Did she want to get up on her own terms or their terms?  At first, she did not know if she could do it.  Once the smoothie arrived, I started feeding it to her.  She had not eaten and felt full very quickly.  When the smoothie was about 1/5th gone, I pushed the nurse call button and told my mom that she had 5 minutes (the time it would take the nurse to get there) to visualize herself sitting up.  That woke her up.  She was amazing!!!  The nurse came in and helped her sit up.  She even decided to sit in a chair and sat there for a whopping 45 minutes.  We were all amazed at the vitality that came back in her face when she was able to sit up.  After that she was pretty wiped out, but it was a great way to end the day.

Today she tried to sit up more and get up to the restroom again.  She said the pain was definitely subsiding, and she just felt extremely tired and fatigued.  By the afternoon, they were ready to move her out of the ICU and into a progressive care room.  The weekend will be a time of rest, healing and exercise.  On Monday, they will do another ultrasound of her heart.  We are all hopeful that the improvement will be remarkable and she will be heading home Monday or Tuesday. 

Thanks to everyone for all of your thoughts, prayers, cards, flowers, visits, etc.  It has been amazing how much people have been there for all of us!