baby steps

Paul is still in hospital, and seems to be making good progress. His surgery yesterday took longer than expected, but the surgeon felt it went well. He now has screws holding his scapula together and a metal plate on his clavicle, as well as a temporary hose coming out of his chest draining an impressive amount of fluid from around his lungs. This will hopefully come out sometime tomorrow. He managed to stand a few times this morning (turned a magnificant shade of green the first time), and went for a walk up and down the hall in the afternoon. Since the right side of his upper body doesn't work at all right now, we are getting to know each other VERY intimately. He started eating today. Two bites of muffin in the morning, two mouthfulls of spaghetti at lunch, and a few slurps of soup at dinner. He's doing well with fluids, although nausea is still a problem. Probably all the meds.

He may be coming home by the weekend, which will be nice for both of us. I can't seem to relax unless I'm at the hospital, in spite of being completely exhausted and living off of take out and vending machine food. It only just occured to me this evening that once he's at home, there won't be any nurses. Just me. Shit man. Mental list of things to do being compiled. Work has been good about giving me time off on medial leave. I got a message that they were working on covering next week for me too which I didn't really think would be necessary until I started to think about Paul coming home, and now I'm pretty sure it will be. I'll take it day by day.

Paul is the strongest person I know physically and mentally. I have no doubt he'll recover well and swiftly. It is hard to see him like this though.