Now that my husband was awake, it was time to try to get him to move a little bit. He had spent so much time in SICU, but he still could not be moved to the rehab unit. We settled into the daily routine of the respiratory unit. He was still connected to that darn ventilator and still had a feeding tube. Because his hip was broken and now healing and his leg was still casted, he could not do a whole lot of physical things. He also remained wildly confused and agitated. It still took all of us to watch him so he would not pull out any of his tubes or picc lines, although, he was slick! (Once as my daughter and I talked, me on one side of the bed and my daughter on the other, he watched us intently. As my daughter looked away for a second, he pulled out his vent tube. My daughter, without missing a beat, scolded her dad and plugged that thing right back in!) He also pulled out his picc line twice. I still to this day cannot figure that one out, but it didn’t seem to astound his trauma doctors much.
Enter the therapists. They would visit with my husband and move his arms around and move his legs around. The speech therapist could not work much with him at this time because of the vent, the other therapist tried their best. One group decided that it was time to at least sit him up in a cardiac chair. That was a trick! I’m not sure that it was entirely a good idea looking back now. It was only for a short period of time, but the look on my husband’s face was interesting to say the least. I don’t think he understood what was happening. They came in and bustled about, trying to decide how to move him. I stepped out of the room to give them the space to accomplish this. When I returned, there was my husband sitting up. He actually looked good! It had been better than 6 weeks since I saw him in an upright position. However, he was not happy. He started wiggling around and I thought, he was trying to stand up. Then he got a wild look in his eyes and kept staring at the bed remote and inching towards it as if he wanted to grab it. For one fleeting moment, I thought, he’s going to hit me with that thing or fall out of this chair trying to do so. I yelled for one of the nurses to call for the physical therapists to come back and move him back to his bed, which they did. This was one of the first times I ever recall being nervous in the same room with him. This episode seemed to pass. No one at this point told me that this was not unusual. I would later find out that periods of agitation are normal. Some experience it worse than others.
The therapists never moved him to a chair again on this unit. They did continue every day working with him, just moving his limbs around and assured me when he moved to the rehab unit, the therapy would become more intense. As they weaned him from the ventilator, the speech therapist came more often. One day they decided to see how he would do without the vent at all. They pulled the tube and capped the port. He seemed to do well. The next day it was removed entirely.
Now they would see how well he could swallow and if he could make any noises. His speech therapist was very diligent. But he just would not say anything to her. Unbeknownst to me, when his physical therapist would come in to work with him in the morning, she was also practicing with him. Everyone wanted to get my husband to do something. It was a miracle that he survived all he did up to this point and they were very anxious to get him to come around.
He was now getting strong enough to once again be moved. The thought of a new unit again for me was worrisome; I could only imagine what it was like for my husband. Although I don’t think he had any thought about it at this point. The morning before his move his physical therapist was in his room working with him. As I still came very early every morning, I walked towards his room and saw her there. I decided not to go into the room, because if I was there, he paid more attention to me, instead of her. So I lingered out in the waiting room until I knew she was almost done. As I approached his room to say good bye to her, she said, where have you been? We have been waiting for you. I explained where I was and she looked at my husband and told him to go ahead. He looked at me and said, Hi Maryann! I burst into tears as well as the therapist. This was the first time in months I had heard my husband’s voice!
He was moved to the rehab unit later that day. I will always remember that pinnacle moment. However, I was also almost 100% sure that he had no clue who I was.
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