Sunday, March 7

Another full Sunday, but I'll admit I slept in a little this morning. It felt soooo good to take it easy for a while. But soon I was getting anxious to see Dan so I packed up, checked out and headed across town. It's funny how my routine has changed from my normal everyday life to frequent trips to SL. I almost feel at home down there now. I drive down a street knowing what I'm going see next and where I want to go, rather than guessing like I did before all of this. I wondered if in a few years I'll look back and remember driving through Salt Lake City. You know how when you have a flashback of somewhere you've been before. Just a thought..

When I got to the Home Dan was not in his room. It almost unnerved me to see his empty, made-bed. Like, "Where is Dan? I want to see him." I guess coming that close to losing him has really made an impact on me and I don't ever want to get that close again ~ at least not for many years to come. Maybe not even then!!

However, all is well and I actually found him in the dinning room having dinner with the other patients. He looked so natural sitting there at a table of four visiting with his roommate, Maloy and another older couple. I could see him in my minds eye sitting at a dinner table with other superintendents and just chatting away about things.

When he saw me he said, "Hi honey, pull up a chair and sit down with us" which I promptly did. Right off he said, "I have three things I want to tell you. I'll tell you now so I don't forget." I got the impression he had given this quite a bit of thought before I'd gotten there so I was excited to hear what he had to say.

"First of all, thanks for coming to visit me all the time. I know I'm not easy to be with but I really appreciate you always coming." I'm sorry to say that I can't remember what the second things was. (And he's worried about his memory.) I'll have to ask him later what it was and he'll remember! The third thing was that he'd been thinking about my dad a lot. He said, "Remember when your dad had his first heart attack? Remember how he couldn't reach his arm out very far and how difficult it was for him to walk? Well, he just kept working on his arm, stretching it out further and further until he could finally make it straight. And he started walking, little bits at a time but he kept at it till he could walk a long ways. I want to be like him that way. He didn't complain, he just kept working at it. I want to be like that, too." Those were the things he wanted to tell me. When I remember, or when he reminds me of the second thing, I'll let you know.

Anyway, I left them to eat their dinners and I went to his room. We had talked on Friday about me reading the Dan Diaries to him so he could hear what had happened to him in a sequential order. He still wanted to do that so I went down and hooked up the laptop. I was pleasantly surprised when I could get a wireless connection without any trouble.

I worked on moving my 2009 blog posts to Word for a while and then I went down to see if he was done eating. He was just patiently waiting for someone to wheel him back to his room. He thought he'd like to sit up in the wheelchair for a little bit while I read so he could see the pictures better.

I started with my other blog post explaining why I was starting The Dan Diaries and then we worked our way right through the whole experience. About halfway through he said he wanted to lay down so we made that change and then I just kept on reading. Now and then he'd say something like "I don't remember that at all." Mostly, he didn't remember anything till he was out of ICU but still at the hospital when Tessha was there. But, he didn't have any idea what she meant when she'd tell him that he was at the VA hospital. Now and then he'd tell me what he could remember about something. He said again today that he could hear me tell him that if he needed "to go" it would be ok. He said he was in the Celestial Room and he could hear me calling his name but he couldn't find me. He said he looked around everywhere but I just wasn't there.

I read right through to last night's post and we were both pretty tired by the end of it. I fed him one of the "peaches and cream" jellos that Haini brought up to the hospital for him and encouraged him to eat the grapes that Paunie brought for him. Then I gave him a drink of Apple Juice that Haini brought and a good bye kiss.

I can't say that it's getting any easier to leave him, but it does help to know that we can visit again next week.
I had a good ride home with nice clear skies till Tremonton where the snow on the ground was getting sparce but the clouds were low. I called Dalynn and told her that I was passing Portage. That was something Dan always like to do wherever we'd pass by. Dalynn grew up there so he'd call her and let her know we were driving by. We had a nice visit tonight and it broke up my drive a bit. Luke also called me and we talked about Karly's baptism. He's going to look at flights for me and let me know if it's something that will work out. Daniel and Dalynn's family are also planning on being there. Should be fun.

Well, I'm home and unpacked and in my pajamas. My post is done, I've read it to Alisha who is sitting here on the floor by me and I'm on my way to bed. Tomorrow will be much earlier than today, for sure!!