Day 20: Sedation and a smile

We understand that your unconsciousness is not a problem, per se. And that, in fact, it has been very helpful for you, as horribly uncomfortable necessities have been brought to bear on your body. Debridement, the HFPV, and high-pressure ventilation are all no picnics.

Still, as much as we tell ourselves that fact, twenty days is a long time for us to go without hearing your voice or seeing your smile. I've often had to content myself with only hearing your voice over the telephone, but nearly 10 years in Denver have strengthened me for that. Asia and Forrest and all the rest are going cold turkey, here.

When you first began to open your blue eyes, and your body seemed to at least let the shutters up and some light in from time to time, that was magical for us. You weren't fixing on much. Your face would register some thought that might flit up above the clouds from time to time -- a furrowing of the brow here, an attempt to move your lips, maybe a shuffling of your legs. I tell you this not to disturb you, Dad. Because I know as you read this, some of it surely will. I tell you this so you know that, although you have been laid out on that damn bed, had your consciousness veiled for all these weeks, you have not been lost to us. You have existed. We (all of us, family, friends, nurses, therapists, and sympathetic strangers alike) have thought of you, prayed for you, cared for you, visited you, stroked your hair, sung to you and held your hand every day. These days are not days you would have wanted to be aware. I hope to God you do not recall a second, especially the earliest days. But you existed. Held in love the whole time.

But back to your consciousness. Our experience of it anyway.

Lately, you have begun to track things with your eyes. I think there are fleeting moments in which you try to focus past the abrasions (you no longer have goop sitting on your corneas all the time). Today, as I stood on my stepstool at your bedside (that bed is so high!) working your fingers -- yes, mooooo -- and talking to you, telling you that the reason you can't move very well is because of your sedative and nothing else, I saw you try to get a fix on me. At least I thought so. And I moved my face back thinking you might not be able to focus on me as close as I was. But that moment passed. Followed by some shared silence, a song or two. And then, just as I was about to leave, you opened your eyes again, and I leaned in really close, placed my arm to encircle the left side of your face and head, and you turned toward me. I watched your eyes chart their way in an arc across the distance between some point straight up on the ceiling and my eyes. And you stopped. And I smiled at you, real big so you could see it despite the mask, and said, "Hey there. I sure love you." And you gave me the biggest gift you've ever given me.

You smiled.

And it was not fleeting. And it was not a random grimace. And it was not gas. It was you, telling me this time. That everything will be okay.

Stats: PEEP holding at 8 (they want you to get to 5), O2 assistance at 60%, pulse ox 97%, and temp: 37.3 C (that's 99 F). BOO-YAH! They may begin bringing your sedative levels down if you'll tolerate it.