Hospital: Day 2, and Door County

Rough day yesterday, for several reasons, which I'll go into. Then I want to end on a positive note and tell you about our trip up north with Dad.

First, the world lost a wonderful woman on Wednesday night. My Aunt Barb passed away after a battle with kidney disease. She was 57, a brave and lovely lady. Please pray for Uncle Jerry and my young cousins Jillian and Jared and Jared's brand-new wife, Brynn.

Dad will be devastated when we tell him. He loved Barb. He always called her "My Girl."

Speaking of Bill, he's still at UW hospital, making snail-slow progress. For example: Wednesday he wasn't able to give doctors a "thumb's up" sign, and yesterday, he slowly lifted both arms six inches, thumb's up. I clapped when he did this!

The good news is that his seizure stopped. There's still a lot of activity on the left side of his brain, but doctors say it could always remain that way. So they're focused on finding the right pharmaceutical concoction for him that will prevent seizures and give him back mobility. Every doctor we've talked to said that Dad has a good chance of fully recovering from this episode. For us, that's difficult to see. We don't know if it's the drugs or recovery from the seizure, but Dad's not showing a ton of cognizance. He's starting to quizzically look around, follows some basic commands and moves all his limbs (still strong!). He knows us. But his verbal responses are slim to none: "Yeah," "Well...," "No," "Actually...," "I guess...," -- seems like he's trying to tell us something but can't coax the words out of his mouth. Although, he did greet Scott with a crystal-clear "Hi, Scott." When asked to name his daughters, he did say "Heather." And, strangely, as I was sitting next to him on his bed rubbing his arms and chatting, he looked me in the eye and said, "agriculture." Then he said it again! I'm guessing he was trying to ask me how my job is going. (I work at UW Extension for a farm program.) Funny how the brain works...

So after seeing Dad back to such a strong state, ready to go home, armed with news that the tumor is not re-growing, it's been a let-down to see him back to square one. Linda had an especially tough day yesterday, so please say an extra prayer for her.

Otherwise, Day 2 at the hospital was busy with docs, nurses, residents, students, aides and our pastor in and out of his room. We were even graced by a visit from Dr. Sillay, Dad's neurosurgeon, who really had no reason to see Dad other than his own personal concern. Dr. Sillay spent time with us talking about the EEG, reading brain waves, and reassuring us that these seizures can be controlled and Dad has a good chance of recovery. Dr. Sillay, Dad's hero, even got a laugh out of Dad when he talked to him about laying those wood floors in my office: "Mr. Beecheler, I see you were thorough and put down a subfloor before the wood." My Dad actually smiled and said, "Yeah, right!" Dr. Sillay knew about the subfloor because I gave him this blog address and he looked it up right there in the room on his iPhone. So now I'm nervous about my medical terminology, having a brain surgeon read the blog!

I'm sorry this blog is growing unruly, but I want to end by sharing some pictures of our brief trek up to Door County, which people call the Cape Cod of the Midwest. More water and more boating for Bill...

God bless anyone who's stuck with me in this verbose blog, but the next three photos deserve some explanation. Sunday during our trip was the day Dad went downhill. He was very quiet, irritable and tired, which eventually led to us driving home Sunday night in pounding rain, back to Madison, canceling his return to Ohio.

Just before we decided to leave, we drove to a state park. It was raining, but I saw a trail that led to the lake shore. I took it alone to see if it was something Dad and Linda could follow. It wasn't -- steep paths covered with slippery pine needles wound down, toward the beach, through forests and over rocky hills. I finally made it to the shore where previous hikers had been busy stacking stones. Scattered on the beach were these strange, man-made rock towers. They reminded me of Inukshuks that Linda and Dad described seeing in the North Channel when they took the boat to Canada. These Inukshuks were erected by Inuit people as navigational symbols, meaning "Stone that Points the Way."

Looking out at the lake, I felt a sense of defeat, thinking, "Here we go again. Dad's slipping." I looked up the shore north to see storm clouds. To the south the clouds were breaking to reveal the possibility of clear weather. What would the next hours, days and months bring us?

I built my own Inukshuk for Dad.

May this Inukshuk guide us on a safe journey.