monday evening, february 18

what a wonderful afternoon with another answered prayer...

for the first time in two weeks, we heard him speak today.

they decided to take his ventilator out without much warning. when i walked up to his bed, he said, "hi, whitney." i almost fell over! i had mandy on speaker phone, and he said, "hi, mandy." we were both so excited. i wanted to jump up and down and yell, "give me a "T!" (but i went the other way and fell apart instead!) ha! then we called adam...i didn't forewarn adam that the vent was out or that dad was speaking. i just put the phone on speaker, put it up to dad's mouth, and in his raspy voice he said, "hi, adam." i'm sure adam almost jumped out of his chair!

some of the funny things that he's said (even though i don't think he's trying to be funny...it's just coming out that way - things are still a little jumbled up!)...he's still too weak to be his 100% intentionally comedic self:

as he was rubbing his forehead and his hair, he said, "i'm trying to get organized. i have to hit the road." about ten minutes after he awoke, he said, "where's my checkbook?" (we all thought this was funny b/c one of our tactics in trying to wake him up was to say, "dad, we have your checkbook.") at one point, he was feeling his face and touching his nose and eyes and mom asked him what he was doing. he said, "i'm just getting reacquainted with myself." then mom said, "do you want a mirror?" and he said, "no, not right now." mom was on him trying to get him to stop messing with the tube in his nose and he said quietly, "could you give me a little bit of latitude here?" sounds like the terry we all know and love.

it was one of the most exciting times of our lives to hear his voice again. he's really confused still, but just to know that he is cognizant of mom and us kids is more comforting than we can explain. obviously, he has no grasp of time or understanding as to what has gone on, but he knows he's been really sick. he looked at one of the nurses and said, "thank you for taking care of me." he's just extremely tired and exhausted beyond anyone's comprehension.

so, that's another mountain climbed!

they, also, decided to take him down to get a CT of his chest as well as his stomach (which i mentioned in the previous post). so we're waiting on word of what they find in his chest CT, especially. in the first entry, i had mentioned that they'd seen some fuzzy spots at the beginning of last week, but couldn't clearly see his chest without a CT and he couldn't get a CT until he was breathing on his own. so we're praying, as i type, that there's nothing else detrimental (chest aneurysm, lung problems, etc.) that comes up in the xrays. we should find out the results sometime tonight, we're hoping. we'd like for the findings to be inconsequential so that we can keep moving forward with dad's progress and not have another bump in the road that he'll have to endure.

everything else remains the same, so keep your prayers focused regarding the kidneys, outcome of the ct scan, lungs, etc.

also, doctors are still asking for no visitors besides immediate family now, moreso, than before because dad is awake and that puts him into risk of overexertion which could compromise his blood pressure, etc. thank you all so much for respecting our family's needs in this matter.

praise God for His miracles.