Yesterday was Julie's best day to
date. When the doctor visited Julie, she asked (no sound, just mouthed)
the doctor (a) when can she drink some water (could start sucking on ice
'now'); when can she eat (hopefully in the coming week); when could she get the
trachea tube out (Doctor David said it could be another two weeks:
although Julie's breathing is improving every day, she still has some help from
the machine, but mostly to help push the air through until the muscles are
coping better). Basically, the machine readings are 'S' (spontaneous
breathing) 99% of the time, with a very occasional 'A' (assisted) being
shown, and that occurs when Julie's body is being moved and she feels
pain from the trachea tube being pulled. The machine
mostly helps push the air through until the muscles are coping
better.
Over the last two days, Julie has
had a couple of visits from Ian Lacey, a UQ friend, who was in a motor
accident 6 years ago, and who eventually learned to walk again. We
are hoping Julie will be inspired by Ian's success. Russell also finally
got to see Julie yesterday, after two previous unsuccessful attempts. I
have received from a number of you some suggestions to pursue finding a
lipreader, and will try them out tomorrow, when the business world resumes for
the week.
Julie was awake all afternoon.
She enjoys her hairwashing experience by her nurse, with able assistance from
her Mum! We didn't do such a good job yesterday, as Julie's head wasn't
as close to the edge of the bed to ensure the water ran into the plastic bag
that helps it run down into the bucket below. The result was Lani and I
managed to get Julie's sheets quite wed! This involved a total change to
the bedding when the hairwashing and then bed wash (Lani was ably assisted by
Darrel in this function) was completed. Sadly, though, Julie did
experience some pain and discomfort to her back, which was rectified by some
re-positioning.
Early evening, one of the staff came
in and said the report on the Queensland elections was on the TV, and did Julie
want to watch it. He received a very enthusiastic response from Julie,
who was then propped into the best position possible for watching TV, Ron (who
is here in Brisbane for the purpose of setting up our office equipment in the
unit so that we have easy access to Brice Engineers Townsville office, but also
to see his sister-in-law, grabbed Julie's glasses and positioned them on her,
and Julie enjoyed the stimulus of the results unfolding. I reminded Lani,
who was due to finish her shift, that she impress upon her replacement that
Julie would eventually need her glasses removed when she tired of the TV AND
the elections. I am pleased to report to all of you that I knew how Julie
voted (postal vote before her accident), and that she would not have been
disappointed with the outcome. Many of you may not have known that it was
this weekend that we were to have a Mother/Daughter/Granddaughter weekend in
Sydney. We generally do this annually, sometimes with Cali and sometimes
without. It was thus a poignant weekend. As Cali (just turned 14)
was taking her Aunty Julie's accident very hard, it was great that Kylie and
Cali went to Sydney, not so great that it was rather rushed, with them leaving
Townsville midday on Friday, and returning to Townsville this
afternoon. They didn't do dinner at Quay Restaurant, which had been
planned for the four of us to do, but did get to see "The Hunger
Games". Both said it was fantastic. When I told Julie they had
gone to see it, Julie screwed up her face: all of us had been so looking
forward to the movie being released in Australia. I recommend to all of
you that you buy the books (a trilogy series) and read them, before you see
this first movie out of what will be three. I have promised Julie that as
soon as I can get it on DVD, I'll bring it down and watch it with her.
We are hoping that today, Sunday,
will bring another great day for Julie. There will of course be the pain
of being moved, but we are hoping we can find further stimulus (or is it
stimuli?) for her.
Best regards
Val, Norm, Kylie, Ron and Darrel
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