It would never be said of me that I am patient. If I can’t figure out something which I’m supposed to put together on the first or second time (can you say, “Ikea?”) I’m tempted to just curse it and pout and mutter. If the muffins are supposed to take twenty minutes to bake, I’m opening the oven and sticking a knife in them at twelve minutes just to be sure. When airplanes are late and I’m stuck in the airport at the gate, I’m the one pulling out my hair and standing in line at the ticket counter seeing if there is anything that can be done, because I can’t bear the delay.
Which is strange, really, because there are lovely things which can be done while one waits, while one practices patience, things I actually love to do…read, cross-stitch, do a crossword puzzle, twiddle my thumbs (seriously, I kind of like the repetition of the thumb thing).
This is all the long way around saying that we are still waiting. We are waiting to slowly watch the ventilator levels decrease. We are waiting to see Dick open his eyes. We are waiting for antibiotics to take effect. We are waiting for the slow process of healing.
Today was a big day in room 3126 (a day we’ve been waiting for). Dick was moved from his rotating bed into a regular hospital bed. AND, he kept his oxygen saturation levels in the 90th percentile while it happened, and they even pushed upwards of 95% in the hour or so afterward. It is good to see his face again, to be able to hold his hand. Sedation is decreased for about twenty minutes each day to start to see if an assessment of mental functioning can be made. We got to see his eyes open today, just briefly.
So we wait. And one of us learns patience. As my mom said today to the nurse, “Dick is one of the most patient people we know, and he’ll teach us how to take things one step at a time.”
