It's Saturday and we're still not home . . .

Yep, we are still in the rehabilitation center. Needless to say, we are very disappointed. Marc had another downturn - he became much weaker, wouldn't eat and would hardly drink anything. They thought that he was dehydrated so they gave him a bolus of IV fluid followed by another liter of fluid. That seemed to perk him up a little but later in the day he seemed to worsen. The only think that made him open his eyes was seeing the grandchildren.

He had a rough night last night, he was restless and couldn't seem to get comfortable no matter how I positioned him. He wouldn't talk to me through the night, he just moaned and groaned and I really thought he had just given up. I was ready to tell the Dr. to get in touch with hospice and make preparations to take him home.

This morning, however, when the nurse came in and said "How's my buddy this morning?" Marc smiled and waved. You could almost have picked me up off the floor! By 10 am I had him up in the wheelchair (it took 2 of us to get him up) and bathed him. I asked him if he was giving up or was going to work to get out of here and he gave me a thumbs up to "getting out of here". Then the physical therapist came in and started joking with him saying "there's my Budgie" and he started making faces at her. He spent an hour in PT and when he came back to the room the Dr. was there. He said that all of his labs returned normal, not what he expected at all but the chest X-ray he ordered 3 days ago had not been done so he ordered it again. He said he couldn't find anything physical to cause the symptoms. I asked if it couldn't be depression and he told me that he often sees patients respond like this when they reach a plateau with therapy and think they will never improve. He said he suspected that depression could be the cause. Marc is already on an antidepressant so the Dr. decided to increase the dose some and add an appetite stimulant to his medications as he hasn't eaten anything in the last 3 days. He has lost another 10 pounds this week. After the Dr. left Marc ate the bread pudding and pushed the rest of the tray away, refusing to eat anymore of his dinner.

Steve came in and Marc smiled and made faces at him but then started falling asleep in his wheelchair. Steve and I put him back to bed to let him rest. I was amazed at the change in strength, Marc was able to stand holding on to me and take 4 steps to the bed. What a wonderful improvement. I came home to get some laundry done and wrap some Christmas gifts and will go back before they bring his dinner tonight. I am hoping that he will decide to eat something tonight.

Please say a prayer for Marc. I will let you all know how things go. As of yesterday afternoon the insurance had approved Marc's stay until the 28th. Hopefully he will get home before the kids get back from California on the 29th and we will be able to have our late Christmas at home with them.