DAY 53: Positive

The good news just keeps coming, yet the doctors remain cautious. The turn of each day brings a new opportunity for a setback, according to them, but Mom has seen many days turn with no setback yet. Here's a shot of this morning's rounds visit:


Here are the positives:

• Her respirator oxygen support is around 50%, down from 100% on Dec. 11.


• Her white blood cell count is down to 13,000, indicating little presence of infection in her body. She was at almost 30,000. A healthy person runs 10,000.


• Her skin rash, a reaction to one of the antibiotics, is nearly gone.


• She's off all antibiotics.


• Her sedatives are coming down gradually.

Yesterday, she opened her eyes. She looked at me. I asked her if she knew it was me and she nodded almost imperceptibly. I told her that she was in the hospital after a horseback riding accident. I've told her that many times, so I asked if she already knew it. She nodded again. That made me smile.

I'm eager to get her off the sedatives completely so we can talk to her for real. She's holding her own pretty well these days. Now, if we could just get her to make some forward progress.

In other news, Denver is buried under snow. My high school friends, Quentin Wedan and Christina Mathews, were scheduled to visit yesterday. We had to postpone due to the blizzard. The day staff at the hospital stayed overnight. The mail wasn't delivered yesterday nor today.

Here's how the road to the hospital looked this morning:


This is Mom's car, the one I'm using while she's in the hospital, barely visible in front of the Yaffe House:


I have to admit that I enjoyed driving the all-wheel drive around Denver today. Many roads were unplowed and I fishtailed along them. I haven't done that in years, and it felt good.

I was surprised that the city shut down so thoroughly. The airport was closed. The Postal Service gave up. Cherry Creek Mall was closed. Even Wal-Mart was closed.

What happened to hearty Colorado? I remember growing up in Allenspark when the school bus driven by Bob Kingswood made it through anything, much to our disappointment. It had automatic sanders and chains that came down on a flywheel in front of the rear tires. There'd be white-out conditions but the yellow bus would materialize with fog-lights ablazing and there'd be Mr. Kingswood, cheerful as ever. We'd shuffle on, incredulous that even three feet of snow couldn't give us a day off.

I guess all the kids just stay home and play video games these days. Lucky devils.