We started this diary today so anything before this was written in retrospect but we thought it would be a good idea so here goes. This morning Josh had some canned peas for brekkie and has been drinking juice. He has the ‘bird’ several times a day. This is a machine that pumps air into his lungs as he breathes in. Because of his injury he unable to use his diaphragm to breathe, thus he can’t take a deep breath. So the ‘bird’ system is used to fully inflate his lungs several times a day. Josh can now breathe in with the ‘bird’ for several seconds and then it shuts off on the out breath. He does 10 repeats and then they take a peak flow. His best so far has been 2.85 which was this morning. There is a bit of technique involved in the peak flow process and he has trouble opening his mouth wide enough for the mouthpiece because of the screws in his traction head piece which is screwed in above his ears.
Also this morning he managed to blow his nose which resulted in much booger evacuation helping him to breathe better. The physio pressed his lungs to help him push air up and Jude caught the booger bounty in a tissue yum, yum. He had his first bowel evacuation, no comment.
He has had two sets of bloods done today in readiness for his surgery on Friday. He verbally consented to the surgery and told the staff his understanding of what would happen which turned out to be relatively accurate. A woman called Jane (whose surname was unpronounceable) from WINZ came to organise a sickness benefit for Josh. Later he will be entitled to a disability benefit presumably. Jane was very helpful and nice. Mary called to see how Josh was and she is going to ring Bridgman and Dean to organise some new glasses for blindy so he doesn’t need to wear his contacts. Marion and Hugh came in looking rather tanned and feeling very cold after 6m in Mexico Jude rand her work and Richie passed on everyone’s best to Josh Josh has lost his old roommate, Jackie, who was in the other room at the end of his. Now a man also in traction is in there.
This morning Josh received a parcel from the St Kilda lifeguards. It was a lovely card and some massage oil.
This afternoon Josh’s friend D turned up from Alex. She was on her way from Alex to Dunedin and changed her bus to come up to Christchurch. Then she was going back to Dunedin to shift flats before flying up to Auckland on Friday. She spent a couple of hours with Josh.
Adam rang and talked to Josh. Gaynor rang and talked to Josh. Tony, Rebecca and Anna sent some lovely flowers. Jude checked her emails on Kath’s laptop and there were a couple re Josh, 1 from Suzanne Robins at LPHS and 1 from Jacqui, Matt Mack’s mum. Both expressed concern and best wishes.
8:05pm Josh adds “my need for pain relief is going down. I’ve talked to my family as well”.
D also brought Josh a green monkey (soft toy, not real) called Abe and a chocolate heart. Josh has a new addiction for lip balm. This evening he has eaten some pseudo food (or pseudo foodo) na-na, yoghurt, choccie milk and milk. TV watching has turned out to be a disaster – the TV only works for 5 minutes and then loses the picture. No! Survivor oh no!! Dorothy and Allan texted best wishes