Look who's talking now!

Hi! Genuinely excited to be writing this one!

Well...as you may have guess from the title, Dad is now talking! As you hopefully remember from the last update, the respiratory therapist determined that Dad is doing well enough to start weening him from the trach. So we started with simply plugging the trach, which he tolerated extremely well. Now we've moved on the the Passy Muir valve, which is a one-way valve that allows Dad to inhale through the trach, and then exhale through his mouth. This allows him use of his vocal chords...and low and behold, he speaks!

Let me be entirely clear, it's not like we're carrying on full conversations with him; but on the other hand, sometimes he makes complete sense! Most of the time he mainly mumbles, but when he mumbles, he speaks with inflection and in what sound like sentences. Like always, he has moments of total lucidity, and moments where he is completely non-responsive. But when he is "awake," he talks constantly. So far he's said all of our names; for instance, "Say hi to Ben!" to which he responds "Ben." (Did I mention that Ben was in town this week? I'm a bad blogger; he was here.) When Ben told him that he lives in "Leesburg, Virginia," he responded by repeating "Leesburg, Virginia...mumble...Perseville." (Leesburg is near Perseville). He also mumbled something about "vines" when Mom mentioned that the hops were growing like crazy. He definitely understands us; and we think he also understands his condition and the situation to some extent. If ever it was a question whether or not he's in there, we finally have our answer!

Dad's progress has been really slow and it's been easy lately (for me, at least) to get discouraged, but this latest milestone has given me and Mom our second (or third, or fourth, or fifth...etc.) wind. Hopefully it does the same for everyone reading this as well.

We're getting him back! Cheers!!!