January 26th, 2011 by MIchelle

As you can tell by the frequent updates yesterday, a lot has happened since Danny got out of surgery. The day has been packed, but he managed to squeeze in some quality hang time with all of the new arrivals. The nurse helps him get out of bed and guides him to the rocking chair where Danny slowly rocks back and forth with the ambiance of a king. We all gather around and try to entertain Danny as best we can. Chris started a game of catch earlier and Danny sunk one into Ian’s hat from ten feet away with one eye closed, involuntarily swollen shut. A little while later he got up and out of his chair ready to get back into bed and probably would have had I not sounded the alarm to the nurse. He looked at me like, what the hell are you freaking out about? I’m just getting back into bed. Danny probably would have had no problem doing it on his own, but I’m still on my toes and keep a close eye on him even in a room full of people. Sometimes I feel annoying telling Danny not to pull his blood pressure cuff off, itch his stitches, or get out of bed all alone. He doesn’t listen to me at all anymore and I don’t enjoy telling him what to do so that’s fine with me.

If you read Tommy J’s post from yesterday, you may have noticed that he mentioned something along the lines of me not being all there intellectually (followed by the reassuring Just kidding in parenthesis). He also said that I was a lot smaller than he had expected, well…he’s a lot hairier than I had expected…from the ears down. From the photos of him I couldn’t tell how intense his beard actually is. David put it best today pointing out, “you have one thick beard, I mean the lord of the rings could be going on in there.” David and Tom are a part of a secret beard club. Once your beard is a certain length you are in the club whether you know it or not. Their beards have bonded them together on this visit like brothers. The beard is the topic of conversation that consumes 85% of their time spent together. The two beard club members talk about anything from how to trim the beard to the difference in consistency of their hair follicles. It’s entertaining when your slap happy and haven’t slept for 24 hours, to eavesdrop on the beard club daily discussion.

Today is a new day. Danny is up an walking again twice as far as he did yesterday. We brought him his shoes and he cruised to the end of the hall with a walker in front. Conor, Tom, David, and I watched Danny with so much excitement! Never thought I would be this happy watching Danny walk. He’ll be up and walking again this afternoon and he will also be getting his tracheostomy out! Today is a good day in room 5109. More to come…

-Michelle