April 23, 2006 (9:23pm)

Tonight was upsetting to me. Gary had to be put back on the ventilator, which gives him the little extra push to breathe, because his oxygen saturation was down. He was concerned he had had a setback, though the nurse tried to assure him he has been doing better than most people do when going through the weaning process. I think he thought the problem might have been due to them doing a marathon suctioning session on him – they used something called a bag on him, which evidently does deep suctioning. The whole ordeal, as he termed it, took thirty to forty minutes. He called it the suction from hell. His hearing got worse again, even though when I saw him earlier this afternoon he had said it had gotten a little better. Also this evening he wrote out big notes for the nurses while I was there to hold the paper for him: “Turn me: yes no” “Pillow: yes no” “Sit me up so I can watch the TV: yes no” So obviously he doesn’t feel he is being able to communicate to the nurses. The nurse tonight told me he needs to practice taking deep breaths and to cough deeply when they suction him. I told that to him, and he indicated that that was news to him, so obviously there is a failure of communication. The nurse also said for him to be sure to rest, and when I relayed that to him, he spelled out, “speaking of rest . . .” and gave me a significant look. I took the hint.

Maybe I read too much into the things that happened tonight, but I felt upset because I felt that he was frustrated. Yet when I asked if he was, he answered, “a little.” Maybe that’s true, he’s an even sort of guy. I hope so. All I know is that it put my stomach in knots and brought on another session of the weeps.