A quiet day

Today I got access to the WiFi network at RUH, and it works wonderfully... almost everywhere except in PICU (I'm writing this post from the chairs near the elevators just outside of PICU). The good news is that we probably won't be there much longer - Kol is scheduled for an MRI at 1:30PM Tuesday, and after that he will likely be leaving PICU and moving over to the general pediatric ward. That definitely feels like progress!

Kol has been doing pretty good today - not too much pain medication needed, quite a few alert periods, and more interactive. He's still not talking very much - we don't know if that's due to a sore throat from being intubated, or if there's something deeper at work. Even before the hospitalization, Kol has often preferred non-verbal responses - nodding, pointing, making up signs or trying to spell things out by drawing letters in the air - but now it's even more so.

Not too many visitors today - Lorne and Darlene Hovdestad stopped by on their way back from Christopher Lake and spent some time with us (Darlene went with Kristen on a short shopping trip, to watch Annika while Kristen went into a couple stores, and Lorne and I got to visit a bit while keeping Kol company). My uncle Elwood and aunt Irma stopped by for a short visit. And my parents brought the girls to the hospital a couple times - Kol was pretty happy to see them again. We managed to get a family picture too:

and the kids got to spend some quality time together:

Kristen will soon be going back to Mom and Dad's for some well-deserved rest in a real bed, and I'll spend the night with Kol - it should be a bit easier now, they've reduced the frequency of the tests to once every four hours instead of once every hour, so he'll be able to get some more solid sleep as well. Hopefully this will be a quiet night to match the quiet day.