Yay for the pops!

The good news is that while I'm languishing in limbo, the pops has been making strides. STRIDES, I tell you. He has been gaining strength in his hands and can now HOLD A PEN and WRITE which he does with abandon and which is very, very exciting to us. It would be hard to overrate the importance of being able to communicate. He himself is so happy about it it's hard to stop him. The night nurse reported he was up at 2am writing the other night. What was he writing, you ask? "I tried and tried, but I just couldn't read his handwriting" she said. He's writing on a white board and when he runs out of space, he wipes it clean and starts over, so we'll never know what was on his mind that night. But what he writes when Ritesh is around is all comprehensible, and he says the pops is very with it, if a little iffy on short term memory. Ritesh does give him little quizzes every now and then, just to keep tabs on his cognitive function, and this week, the pops had no problem recalling who Obama was but had no recollection of the previous president. Oh merciful mind. I wish we could all just forget about that guy.

But the most exciting this is: THE POPS CAN EAT! YAY FOR THE POPS! He passed a swallow test yesterday, some slivers of ice, some apple sauce and a graham cracker, and so today he got some more apple sauce and some mashed up veggies and soup and, believe it or not, mashed up teriyaki chicken. I've been looking forward to the pop's first meal for weeks and am really bummed I missed it (me an my bronchitis are still staying as far away from him as possible). We had done a lot of speculating on what he would want as his first meal after three months of intravenous protein goo, and finally Ritesh asked him the question and he said what he missed most and wanted first was daal bhat, i.e. Indian lentil daal with rice. Instead, he got teriyaki chicken, poor guy, but I'm sure the mom is whipping up some daal as we speak and he will get it soon - this all happened so fast! It was totally unexpected but I'm convinced and keep saying that him being able to eat real food will make a huge difference in his well-being and recovery.

Now please let there not be another set back. He's still in the ICU and I guess the next step is discharging him, again, to the rehab place.