As of this morning, Dad continues to recover. He is off antibiotics and is only receiving pain medication as needed. When I called about 9:30 a.m. he had not had any pain medication since about 2:00 a.m. Unfortunately, after taking him off IV pain medication yesterday, they gave him morphine to help with the pain. Dad and morphine do not appear to get along. Luckily there are many other options to help relieve his pain but it is going to take a while for the morphine to get out of his system.
The staff in the ICU have been absolutely wonderful!!!! It is so hard though, wanting to be at Dad's bedside all the time, wanting to be with my own family, and needing to carry on with daily life. I feel so torn. I worry about not being there if Dad needs anything, whether they can understand what he is saying, whether the doctors could be missing anything because they don't know Dad's baseline functioning, and whether I have done everything I could. I find it very hard to trust strangers caring for Dad after all the setbacks he has had. On the other hand, I know when we are there he worries that we are taking time away from our families and is continually telling us to go home. I realize he will need us later when he returns to rehab and home and now is the time to rest but it is so hard.
Shortly after Dad had his stroke I was at his bedside. He began talking about the time I was 16, working at Nimrod Hall and a gas broiler blew up in my face. Dad came from work to take me to the hospital where I stayed for several days. He talked about how worried he was driving to pick me up. He prayed all the way that I would be o.k. He talked about how he had to be strong because I was so scared. I didn't think to ask him at the time why he told me this story but maybe it was to remind me that now was my turn to be strong and trust in the Lord.
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