cHiCaGo: DaY 3

One phase kept going through my mind today: "Same, same, but different," which if you haven't been to Asia probably doesn't mean as much to you.

Dad: same thing, different day.

His latest CT scan shows the blossoming of the frontal contusion. In the words of the neurologist, that means, "nothing dramatically worse, still a very grey zone." His pressure fluctuates from 16-24, so they're giving him medicine to try and keep it down. This is day 3 of the 5-ish day bruising process and the doctor says the fact that it hasn't spiked too much is a positive thing. I hope so, because basically I get really angry watching it go up and down.

The neurologist mentioned that the area with the most bruising is the language part of the brain and of course when that bridge comes, he may have to go to speech therapy. Weird. So, my dad is going to have to learn to talk again? Does that mean he won't have a British accent anymore or be able to kill me in Scrabble? Because those were always pretty cool things. Of course this is all hypothetical based on... you guessed it: cranial pressure.

He hopes the pressure will stabilize in the upper teens by Wednesday so they can take out the intercranial pressure monitor. They also hope to soon ween him off intubation because other complications can arise if it's in over 10 days. Obviously, we're a bit away from that, just fingers crossed we don't get close.

In other words: please keep praying the pressure goes down, the contusion heals nicely leaving no lasting problems and his ear bleeding stops. Also, pray his body will start accepting food; they had to take him off of it today because all the meds are making him reject what will in essence give him the strength to keep healing.

That's today in a nutshell.

Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. I'm sorry for those of you who I forget to text/call back. But I do appreciate the messages, it helps keep me sane. It's good to know he has a large cheering section.