Honestly, y'all are giving me the same advice that I'm dispensing all the time!  I should listen to myself!!  I think we all know things like this, really, but need occasional reminding and reassurance -- even permission -- that it's normal and okay.  After three weeks, you begin to wonder what's normal -- there's a new, evolving normal 'round here.

Prior to February 28th, the only place I'd ever been in a hospital was obstetrics, surgery (wisdom teeth), and regular hospital rooms (almost always just to visit).  ICU is a whole other world -- as is neurology, Michael's new address.  It looked like a regular door in a hallway, but it actually opened into another, more private, inner hallway-like working area with a glass wall/sliding doors/curtains on the other side as the actual entrance into the patients' rooms.

Michael was sitting in a chair when I arrived yesterday -- and had done quite a bit of sitting during the day.  They didn't need to suction his lungs at all yesterday!  The nurse said that he keeps trying to get up and go -- he's bored, for one thing, and he wants to get something to eat.  He didn't pass the swallow test on Monday, and I'm hoping that they'll do another with a more positive result today so he can start eating and drinking a little bit!  And if not, they'll just keep trying.  They've begun giving nourishment through the feeding tube on a schedule, as if he were taking meals, rather than continuously.  A schedule of physical and other therapies should get going pretty quick and keep him more occupied.

It is very strange.  I am not a small talk person.  I am more the blabbing, babbling, get your waders ready 'cuz there's gonna be a flood (followed by a drought) kind of person.  I've got stories to tell and I can be a passionate speaker and I can go on and on, but that's too much for Michael right now.  He needs it short, sweet, understandable, easy to respond to.  It's hard, too, because he doesn't initiate conversation and he doesn't ask many questions -- and he still has the trach.  Maybe as he starts doing more and getting stronger, it'll be easier to talk.  He's funnier than hell, but he's such a straight man -- such a GOOD straight man -- it's sometimes hard to know when he's being serious and when he's joking.  And now he's even straighter, with his body, head and neck braced -- the subtle body language and expression isn't getting through.  He gave me the finger yesterday for something I said -- I don't remember what it was, but the reaction was totally appropriate -- and I had to ask whether he was really mad or was he joking!  He was joking.  ; )