Evening

Can you believe Ernest, Mark's new room mate is the same Ernest who was Mark's room mate at Jefferson Hospital back in early December? Sad to say, things haven't changed much for Ernest.

So much for the safety bed! When I arrived today around 2:30 Mark was in bed napping. The mesh flap - which is basically the entire side of the contraption - on the safety bed was unzipped and flipped onto the roof (picture a mesh playpen, turned upside down on a bed), the bolsters were off and the bed rails were down. In other words, it might as well have been a regular single bed. Good thing he was sound asleep.

Dinner didn't seem very appetizing, good thing I brought in some sushi!

While I was waiting for his clothes to dry (their dryer takes forever) Mark and I had a really good conversation. For the first time, it was a real give and take conversation, with almost no hesitation on his part. He wanted to know what had happened to him and I explained the morning of the event and gave him some of the medical details, but didn't go into the real scary stuff. I explained how the ventricles drained, what effect the blood in the brain has on the drainage system, how fluid builds up and causes hydrocephalus and how the shunts work. I didn't go into the infection, surgeries, pneumonia and the blood clot. It's funny how it feels years ago and almost like it happened to someone else.

Earlier in the evening, when we were having dinner with Maggie, Mark's mom, he even joined in the conversation with no prompting.

P.S. We're waiting for you to visit.