Sorry about the delay in doing this – it was started ages ago, but too many interruptions today!  Here’s the latest update…..
 
Hi everyone
 
I visited Dad in Paris yesterday, with great excitement about being able to chat with him for the first time since the accident.  Initially, Dad wasn’t making any noise when he spoke but then I realised that the device which allows him to speak isn’t a permanent fixture and I needed to ask the nurses to fit it for him so that his words formed sounds.  It really was music to my ears to be able to hear Dad talk.  Under the circumstances, he was in amazingly good spirits, although he is inevitably getting pretty fed up with his situation. 
 
I asked Dad if he fancied anything to eat and the nurses moved him into the armchair so he was in a better, more upright, position for this.  Dad has been eating very, very, little, so I brought with me a few goodies, including some organic apple and strawberry purées which come packaged in a soft pouch so they’re easy for Dad to hold, eat and control for himself how much he sucks out of the pouch.  I also brought a Marks & Spencer raspberry jelly, which I was hoping he’d find refreshing and reasonably easy to digest.  Fortunately, he did and polished off the whole pot, so I think this is probably the largest amount of “real food” he’s eaten so far!  With hindsight and with Dad still being a little bit shaky, I concluded that jelly perhaps wasn’t the most practical food to expect poor Dad to be able to keep on the spoon without a bit of help!!!!  Not wanting to rob him of small opportunities to do things for himself independently, I left him, in the main, to do a splendid job of eating this himself!
 
Before I knew it, the first visit was over but the first thing we did on the evening visit was to launch an attack on the next item on the menu which was an M&S crème caramel!  It was very encouraging to see Dad beginning to eat - under my bad influence, all sweet things!  This visit was spent mostly lip-reading because although Dad did still have the speech device attached to his throat, it wasn’t working.  About two-thirds of the way through the visit, an attending nurse noticed that it had detached from a tube to which it needed to be connected, which is why Dad hadn’t been making any sound when he tried to talk (I’m sure there are a few people who are probably now frantically trying to find a supplier of these devices (minus the essential tube) for me!).  So we had about 5-10 minutes of relief with spoken conversation (whenever Dad could fit a word in edgeways, of course) before Dad’s breathing became so laboured that the nurses had to replace the device with the ventilator.  So we were back to lip-reading again!!!  I was also able to give Dad a bit of a moisturising session and hand massage and noticed a massive difference in the size of his now thin hands, compared how swollen they were from the odoemae on my last visit just before he left Tours for Paris.
 
All in all, for me personally, it was a really worthwhile trip, even if I could only be there for the day.  Dad was in a really “soft and gentle” kind of mood and seemingly less fed up, for the second visit.  Although he became increasingly tired, it was lovely to have had both of the visiting hours with him being awake and communicative the whole time.
 
It’s anticipated that Dad may come off the ventilator towards the end of this week.  Steve Hansen is going to perform Dad’s second leg operation when he returns from holiday and hopefully Dad will then be able to be moved out of Intensive Care and onto Steve’s orthopaedic ward.  In addition to marking Dad’s progress and a new stage in his recovery, this will also mean more generous visiting hours. 
 
Max has arrived in Paris today, staying until Thursday and then Marie-Thérèse will be there on Friday for the weekend.
 
Love
Nat
xxx