Sunday

Just relieved Nicholas and he is on his way home to get some sleep.

Jake looks MUCH better this morning. His swelling is subsiding and the nurses were able to clean him up quite a bit, even washed his hair a little bit to get out some of the dried blood. The swelling around his eyes is down and he can actually open both eyes. I'll try to post a new picture today if he is up to it.

When I came in, he was sitting up watching a little "Star Trek", a classic episode by the way, "Spock's Brain". It was good to see him finally able to do something to break the monotony.

Early Saturday morning the team of doctors arrived to check Jake out. At that time they said they would be able to clear him to start taking some liquids by mouth. That's part of preparing him to be discharged. He needs to be able to take fluids and oral pain medication before they can send him home.

Unfortunately, being cleared for fluids is not as straightforward as simply giving him a glass of water and a drinking straw. They have to schedule a speech therapist to do some swallow tests or something before they will start giving him anything to drink. Since it's the weekend there's no speech therapist available, which means that now it won't be until Monday that he will be cleared at the earliest. You would think they would have a process that wouldn't require waiting an entire weekend to get a drink of water. (All of which tends to confirm my basic contention that the term healthcare is an oxymoron. OK, that's not fair, the staff here is very nice. I say that sort of stuff to make Denise mad.)

The plan still appears to be to discharge Jake and have him return later for surgery. According the MD on Saturday morning, he would be discharged as early as Sunday or Monday. At the time I thought that was an incredibly agressive schedule. Now that he won't be on fluids until Monday I'd be very surprised if he is discharged by Tuesday

Jake had a few visitors on Saturday. Brandon, his Mom and Ryan came up together and spent some time with him. Giovanna also drove herself up to visit. I don't think Jake was able to talk very much (he's pretty wiped out), but I'm sure he enjoyed the company.

That's most of what I know at this point, since I was out for most of the day. Denise will probably be able to add more later.

BTW, I have set up this blog so that Jake can update it via email, so hopefully he'll be adding some posts as he starts to feel a little better.