There was a smell of breakfast coming up from the kitchen. You know what it is like: mouth watering. By the sound of things, it was going to be a hot breakfast. Pots and frying pans were involved. Definitely. When I went down, Pádraig was cooking. I said ‘hello’, and ‘how was it? Everything ok?’ to him on the way out to early morning swimming. We didn’t have time for more conversation, and I certainly had no time for breakfast. I was a bit late trying to get to the pool for 5am. Pádraig had just got back home after Tuesday night at the Condrah. Wednesday mornings became one of those regular occasions that we met. You could say it was a bit unusual, but then – Pádraig enjoyed going out, being with friends, and going to bed early in the morning after a great night out. And you could see and feel it watching him preparing his early morning breakfast how happy he was in himself. There was the odd morning I was wondering whether I should swap the early morning swim session with a late night out myself… Nights seem to be so much more fun.

With all these scares and operations over the past weeks, I didn’t have much opportunity to think about the early neuro rehab programme that we came here for. I have just been concerned about Pádraig being able to get over these lung troubles. His overall condition, his level of alertness has not changed much over the past weeks. I think I mentioned that he moved his arm across from the left to the right hand side of his body and turned his head around when a doctor said she was going to check the drainages a few days ago – a first! He still opens his eyes most of the time when people arrive to be with him. He squeezes your hand when you hold it and talk to him. It is really hard to tell how much he hears and sees and understands of what is going on around him. It seems that this also changes during the day, and from day to day. What is clear is that he has made tremendous progress since the accident. Although progress has been very, very and sometimes painfully slow, with loads of setbacks, he is clearly moving in the right direction. There have been no dramatic changes though, he cannot move by himself, he still has the tracheostomy, and he is still getting food using a PEG. Over the past days, he has been breathing mostly by himself using a T-piece through which humidified, warm air (with some minimal O2 content) is being blown by his trach. This is another first: no additional oxygen at all.

The nurse looking after him this afternoon had offered last night to cut his hair – she had studied the pictures of him and found that his hair was getting quite long, compared to the way he looks on the pictures. She also said that shorter hair was better as he is sweating quite a bit. We said we’d look for scissors – but, as it was the weekend, we arrived empty-handed. So she took matters into her own hands, located really sharp surgical scissors and cut his hair in style – like a professional barber would have done. Brilliant.

Tomorrow: they will place phone calls to Eilbek to see when he will be able to move back.

Today’s German Music Tip
Rio Reiser, Für immer und Dich (1994?) – Lead singer of Ton, Steine, Scherben, performing solo.
What’s hot
Haircuts with surgical scissors
What’s cold
Routine
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Hintern Horizont geht’s weiter

Twitter: @forPadraig
#caringforPadraig
http://www.caringforPadraig.org
Upcoming events: http://www.caringforPadraig.org/events