'Lil Junkie's comb-over

Ford spent most the last 36 hours battling what appears to be (according to the most recent assessment) morphine withdrawal, constantly vomiting, shaking, a sleepless night, high blood pressure/temperature, not to mention his moaning and muttering - I just need a dime, man... Anything you can spare.

It was really upsetting to sit with him yesterday and watch him struggle with so much. With all the tubes down his nose (one draining his stomach fluid, one going to his intestines for feeding, and one for breathing) he is reduced to dry-heaving, silently gagging and choking. Eventually there was just too much coming up that it started bypassing the tube. He was drooling out thick yellowish-green goo and looking pained and incredibly distressed. Apparently he was puking out more than they were putting in.

So these withdrawal symptoms, on top of his recovery from the surgery, seem to be really taking their toll on him. They finally bulked and gave him more morphine this morning and he had a good long rest. He seems in much better spirits today. His stats on the monitor were hard to watch yesterday as his agitation had thrown them all out of whack and got us all concerned that he was going downhill again, but today things look a lot better. I think with a few more days of good rest he will be ready to try extubation again. Hopefully he will tolerate it this time.

The nurse today is quite lovely and calming and she seems very concerned that he stay settled. So we are instructed not to touch him too much and he is covered with blankets to keep the noise and light out. She took the time to wash his hair, which was matted with ultrasound gel from all the brain scans he's been getting (routine, we are assured). Then she combed his hair into something she felt resembled mine, a nice part to the side and an exagerrated wave. "Now he looks like daddy!" she cheerily exclaimed. I wanted to point out that I hadn't washed my hair in days, so in fact he looks a lot unlike daddy, a lot better than daddy, even. But I held my tongue.

He's been waking up for short periods of time today and seems much more alert than usual. He's had a big day of visitors with Anita coming up to visit from White Rock and her sister Cathy coming in from Sherwood Park. It's great to have some family come around, and more importantly to finally feel comfortable having them here. It's been so hard to think about him getting better and to feel good about introducing him to others while riding this crazy train.