Saturday

Saturday was more of the same. Grandpa was cognitively doing so well and really looking good. The color in his face was great. The downside is he had to be back on the bi-PAP machine. This is a breathing mechanism that fits over his eyes, nose and mouth and forces oxygen into his system. During Friday night he just had a mask on and his oxygen saturation levels dropped quite low. So they needed to put him back on this breathing machine. I guess it's similar to the mask people wear when they have sleep apnea, although those masks only cover the nose and mouth. I hope I never have sleep apnea and have to go on one of those machines. That would blow. Literally.

It's also difficult to understand Grandpa when he's got the mask on. It makes for an interesting scenario. He's mumbling through the mask but can actually hear us quite well because his ears aren't covered by the mask at all. So we hear quiet mumbling and in return shout back loudly. He's probably wondering why the hell we keep yelling at him.

We kind of hung around the hospital for most of the day and Grandma mentioned she wanted to go to church so the sisters brought her. Becca and I then headed up to Grand Forks for Grandpa Lester's 90th birthday! Our Dad cautioned that the roads were a little bad about 10 miles outside of GF, he failed to mention they were actually skating rinks. Becca did the driving because I was a little out of it from the all-nighter with Grandpa. We got up there to spend a little quality time with the bday boy and then head back before it became too dark. I slid over to sit next to Grandpa Lester during dinner and ask him how his day went. I asked him if he has shot any pool lately (since this is a favorite past time of his) and he said, what? "Did I shit on the pool???" Haha. Typical Lester.

When we got back to Fargo around 9 the ladies were back at our house eating Eric's delicious homemade stir fry. They had gone to church and then checked in on Grandpa for a couple hours before heading home. Before heading back to Dilworth Grandma was in the kitchen and said she felt a little sorry for Grandpa because no one had really been with him that evening and she didn't want to wonder where we were. Since we were both anxious to see him, Becca and I offered to go check in on him and maybe sit there for a while as he slept.

Grandpa's nurse this night was Ivan - from Chezcholovakia. He had a tiny bit of an accent which could also be interpreted as a speech impediment. But he was good. It's so phenomenal to witness the nursing staff in the ICU and the genuine care and compassion they give their patients. I've been so impressed. We sat for a while and then at one point Grandpa woke up and smiled when he saw us. They let him take the mask off for a while and we chatted for a bit with him. He asked about everyone and what they were doing. He asked about the weather. We told him it had already snowed quite a lot and it was supposed to snow again tomorrow and potentially blizzard on Monday. He wanted to know how our drive up to GF was and how Grandpa Lester was doing. We filled him in on the dinner and who was all there. Then I said what else do you want to know, I'll tell ya anything. He said I don't know, whatever you can tell me. We told him tomorrow was St. Patrick's day and there were a bunch of drunk Irish people in the streets and he asked if we were going to join them and we said no, that made us want to stay inside that much more. I asked him if he was feeling okay and was in any pain, or if the incision on his belly was bugging him. He said no, it wasn't and wanted to know again why they operated. I said it was because they were fairly certain that the cause of the sepsis was in his colon and they needed to go in and see it for themselves and potentially remove some of it if it were damaged. But they wound up not finding any infected colon. He said, well that's good then and I agreed. I said it was a little risky to open you up, but your body handled it very well. You were a little groggy yesterday but that was from the anesthetic and that was to be expected. I asked him if he knew what the blue machine was beside his bed and he said, yep that's the dialysis machine. Yep - and it's cleaning your blood, he said yes that he knew what it was doing. I said that the blood pressure medicine they gave him right away had also been reduced because his body was able to regulate that on his own now. He agreed that this was all good information. He said thank you several times and that he loved us much. We tidied up our stuff and said we would see him in the morning.

So to recap the day. Grandpa is improving and his tests are all looking better. But he is still a little frustrated with why he's so sick and in the hospital. But again, things could be a lot worse. Just imagine if you were a T-Rex.