August 23, 2011 - Hole 'lot'a shaking going on!

Today was a little different for Jason, as he did have to go to the O.R. this morning, and the work done there was more than just a good cleaning. They also applied the a-cell treatment and think that he is doing very well with his progress. If all goes well with this new treatment he won't have to go through another skin graft, and that means he would be just a little more comfortable during his healing progress. He went down at about 8:00 this morning and got back to his room at close to 14:00 (2pm), so you can see he was gone almost 6 hours, twice the time for his PACU visits.

Once he got back to his room he was feeling a little uncomfortable and tender in some areas, but due to the treatment it is understandable. The challenge with this today is that there is a big move, later in the day. This meant that the final packing of his room had to take place and I had to make sure I didn't forget anything. Jason was feeling the affects of his meds so he was falling to sleep frequently. Only thing is that he was also awake enough to continue to give me directions and ask enough question to be sure I wasn't forgetting anything. If there was any question about his ability to think and use his brain, after the explosion, he answered those questions quite well today. There are a couple of things I would have forgotten, had it not been for Jason reminding me to pack them up. It was actually kind of fun working with him.

On top of getting things packed up in his room, there were some meetings going on, right outside his door (close to the nurse's station area), so I went out to get a little information. While I was walking down the hall the floor started to move and the entire building began to sway - it was an earthquake! My first thought was, "wow, this is an earthquake." And just kept on walking back to Jason's room. I didn't think too much about it until several of the other folks around me started showing signs of being nervous or scared. I got back into Jason's room and asked him if he had felt it and he said, "Yeah. Was that an earthquake? I thought someone was playing with my bed." I guess being from California we are a bit more accustomed to ground shaking. Out on the right coast it is big news, and all the news stations were now totally focused on the earthquake in D.C.

Finally, the move to the fourth floor got underway. Everybody had pretty well settled down from the earthquake, and at 19:00 (7pm) the move started. The Lt. Commander (the head nurse) had spent quite a bit of time putting the move schedule together and was able to execute very close to the schedule she had built. When I spoke to her a couple of days ago she had told me that she thought they should be able to get the move completed in about 2 hours. The final bed, the one right after Jason, was place in his room at 21:00 (9pm) and they got the move done in exactly 2 hours. Of course there were things to be done in each room afterwards, but that was a matter of just setting up each of the patients' rooms. Jason's TV remote wasn't functioning properly, and that will be corrected tomorrow, so overall I'd have to give them an 'A' for the move. I spent another hour or so with Jason, and then came back to the Lodge where I felt like I'd had a busy day.

Thank you, for all your continued support and prayers.