Zombie days

It seems like we're having one good day then one not so good day.  A short term goal for us is to have 2 good days for every bad day!  Baby steps. Today David was a little like a zombie.  He got about 2 hours of sleep last night then a full day with 3+ hours of physical and occupational therapy and a couple other meetings and radiation.  He's barely functioning and is kind of zombieing through the day. He's back at the rehab facility now and getting as many pain meds as they can dish out to him.  He's trying to stay away from the narcotics because they don't do a whole lot for his pain, they just make him care a little less but the dr's are pushing it a little bit because they don't want him to suffer and they NEED him to rest.  His neck and shoulders are super sore from all the work he's been putting in. His neck wasn't all that flexible to begin with but laying down so much (mandated bedrest) has caused his range of motion in the neck and shoulders to be even more limited.  They've started him doing stretches now so that should ease up soon. 

Day two of radiation went a bit faster than day one.  As they get the routine down it will go even faster which is nice.  The quicker he can get in and out of there the better! 

I finally got the mail order pharmacy to push through the prescription (bout time!) so he should have his chemo meds tomorrow.  He's eager to start which again is odd in the grand scheme of things but in this situation I think it's probably normal.  Let's get this wagon train a movin! 

The doctors/nurses/therapists have meetings about each patient on tuesdays where they assess where the patient is in their recovery and plan out goals based on patient input and dr/therapist recommendations.  They had their first meeting of this sort today and have designated David a T8 paraplegic (time will tell if that will change or not) and have set a tentative go home date for Feb 10th.  Oy! That puts him at 4 weeks in rehab.  Not what we were hoping for but the goal they set is for him to be primarily independent when he gets home.  It feels like a very very long road from now but I suppose everyone feels that way.  A guy was leaving the day we got there after recovering from a stroke.  He said he was there 30 days and it flew by really fast.  We're hoping that's the case.   There's a possibility he could come home sooner if they can get his pain under control enough so he can rest and heal.  We know if he could sleep and rejuvenate his rehab would be going much better.  Even with his weakness he's still learning a lot and progressing but it's gotten a lot slower.  By the end of the week his PT says she wants to try a transfer to/from the wheelchair without the slideboard!  Scary but awesome.  I hope he can reach that goal.

We've been overwhelmed today by some unexpected phone calls from friends who have gone above and beyond in supporting us both moral support and in more tangible ways.  We feel so blessed to have such wonderful caring people in our lives and hope that one day we can repay the kindness, although we hope it's not for the same reasons.  We love you guys, really. More than we can express.