Tuesday Update For Ben

Linda and I got to Ben's room around 9:45 AM. He was awake and alert. You could tell he knew we were there and he was trying to communicate with us some. They told me that he was not on any pain meds and that he told them he does not have any pain, which is good. We noticed that he is off of a lot of the medications and fluids they had him on right after his surgery. His color was good. His vitals are improving every day. He kept trying to "mouth" things to me and some of it I could understand, but most of it I couldn't. The chaplain came in and prayed with us again. When his friend Ed showed up, Ben knew it was him and "mouthed" a greeting to him. When it got to be around 12:00 noon, I asked Ben if he was getting tired and he shook his head no, then I asked him if he wanted us to leave and let him rest and he mouthed "no", so we stayed another 15 minutes when the nurse came in and said she was going to empty his colostomy bag. I figured that was a good time for us to go. Today his numbers were:

Heart Rate = 100
Breathing = 30
Blood Pressure - 119/58
No Fever

We kept watching the monitor and sometimes his heart rate got down around 95 or 96. His breathing got down to 24 or 25. His blood pressure varied, but was still staying up pretty good. Saw the surgeon out in the hall when we were leaving, but she was busy with another doctor so did not get to speak with her. Ben seems to be improving every day. Hopefully he will be out of ICU and back up in DOU soon.