Dad update

Last night, after seeing an already emotional movie (Remember Me... did everyone start sobbing within the first five minutes or was it my emotionally fragile state?) I got this text from Mary Beth:

"Great progress today... your dad is off the ventilator... after 2 hours of an oxygen mask, he is breathing on his own... and having ice chips... positioned sitting up, legs down, morphine every four hours.... pop the bubbly! I love him so much..."

It took my breath away. It was so hard to imagine him awake at all after seeing him the way he was for the couple of days I was out there. The fact that he could be breathing on his own, eating ice chips! Huge.

Every day is a little better and I'm SO anxious to get back and kiss his cheek and hold his hand now that he's waking up. He's still really groggy--- but when Mary Beth said "Randy, Lacy had her baby" he responded with a deep, scratchy voice, "I KNOW..." as in, "I know, you've told me that like a million times...arghhh".... Mary Beth was cracking up while she told me.

Now I just keep picturing the dad I know, who can talk circles around pretty much anyone, and will :)... I still remember leaning my forehead on the car window on drives with him as a kid as he went on and on about politics I refused to find interesting-- bored out of my mind. Now he can sense when we're checking out--- and he'll laugh and move on-- but he's NEVER short of conversation. Or PASSION about what he's talking about. And he's usually got a stronger voice and opinion than the rest of us. And there he was, stuck in that bed, in a sleeping body, possibly listening to us whisper in his ears unable to say ANYTHING in return! Oh how he must have hated that. If only I was a democrat, there would have been some silver lining to the whole situation. ;)

When I remember that he spent 5 months in the hospital all those years ago for a much milder case of Pancreatitis, I know there's still a very long road ahead. But I'm just so excited he's coming back, little by little.

I know prayer works--- thank you so much for all of yours.