Three steps forward, two steps back

The last couple days have seen some trade offs and ups-and-downs in his treatment and healing. Some of the steps forward were the lowering, and even removal, of some of his pain medications, the removal of his epidural, and some advancements in his early rehab. The other day, he was out of bed and in his powered wheelchair moving around the floor. He has been to physical therapy a couple times.
The trade off was some steps back. He has been worn out by everything going on and feels a little overwhelmed, and even pressured at times, by the medical, military and rehab staff. This has been frustrating for both of us. He has also had significant pain as new pain management plans are put in place. A number of other complications have arisen as well. They have had to put him back on some of the pain medications that they had weaned him off.
He described most of today as not the worst day, but the most miserable day - all the various pains, complications, and issues were hard to handle and made for a miserable day.
He has needed a great deal of care the last couple days - sorry for the lack of updates. But, he is sleeping now!

He did have a wonderful visit last night from a navy seal double amputee (both above the knee) that is nearby at Walter Reed hospital doing his outpatient rehab. The guy - his name is Daniel - walked in wearing shorts to allow our Daniel to see his progress. It was inspiring and Daniel got to ask a lot of questions. They spent over an hour together - just the two of them.

An interesting morning yesterday. It seems that the doctors do their rounds with the medical students each morning at about 6:00am. That means that the students come by the rooms and wake the patients starting about 5:00am to prepare for what they have to present during their rounds. This can be annoying as ortho, pain management, urology, surgical, etc. teams keep waking Daniel up. He said to me the night before that he really wanted and needed some sleep. So, yesterday morning I walked from the hotel to the hospital (only 2 miles) at 4:15am through the new snow and ice (and 19 degrees F) and set myself up in a chair in front of his door and was on guard duty. I survived the constant barrage of people trying to see him. I figured if Daniel could stand post in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan with a weapon I could sit in a chair in a hospital in Maryland with a cup of tea. Daniel got to sleep until 6:45am when the nurses and corpsmen had a shift change. I told him, as I headed home that night about 10:30pm, that I was not as tough and young enough and I was not doing that very often. :-)

- This morning I had a nice tea and bagel with Congressman Mike Coffman. A good man. He brought Daniel some wonderful books to read when he is ready.
- Still undecided where he will go next for his lengthy (about 18 months) rehab.
- Daniel excited to get some mail today - from the Vancouver Canucks! Cool.
- He looking forward to a weekend visit from his brother, Aaron.

Dad