Update 9pm Wednesday by Dave

When I left Carol this evening she was still doing quite well overall. She was very uncomfortable sitting up in the chair, but not because of her chest, but because her tailbone was hurting. This caused some angst on her part, but overall did quite well in the chair.

I didn't get a chance to post this earlier because it is hard to type much on the Blackberry, but the move from ICU was interesting.....They decided to do the move using the "patient chair" from her room. This is a special chair for her to sit in (yup, the same one that is so uncomfortable) and it has castering wheels on all four points so it can be easily moved in any direction. In fact, too easily moved.....For short moves, the wheels are great, for anything over 5-6 feet you would have thought we were slipping and sliding on ice out of control. We went the 350 feet or so careening from side to side down the hall, barely avoiding strategically placed obstacles. One nurse had the IV stand and chest tube collector, the other tried to steer using the handle on the middle back of the chair and held a portable monitor (much like a TV). I was carrying 2 bags of personal belongings. After we slipped and slid a bit and ran over the chest tube hose and wrapped it around the wheel (that was real fun getting undone without causing any pain), I took over steering and used the back of the chair instead of the narrow handle. Since I weighed over twice what the petite nurse did, I had, shall we say, a little more mass to control things with and we did the last 250 feet or so without hitting anything or anybody.

Needless to say, none of us would have been awarded a license if we drove like that for the DMV.

Carol was a bit frustrated with the incentive spirometer as it turns out she wasn't doing as well as she thought.....but it was still much better than expected. I'll bet tomorrow she will be getting even better with it.