Questioning Fingers

It is just after 9:00 - what a day.  Still not sure what the night will bring.  They have been trying to determine when they are going to be able to take out her breathing tube.
They decreased her sedation about an hour ago to see if she was able to breathe on her own.  She can. No more Darth Vader which is what her breathing machine sounded like to me.  Everything looks good but they are still concerned that there may be too much swelling in her throat which means it might close up if the tube is gone.
Without sedation she is starting to communicate with us.  She has noticed that her face is covered with tape. Her arms have restraints on them which she just discovered and isn't too thrilled about.  She is able, however, to spell in the air with her fingers and ask us questions about what is going on... like the tape.  She just wiggled her fingers to let us know she had a few more questions - she wondered if she had her surgery done.  We have told her several times that they didn't, but she has forgotten.  She answers us with her eyes, and at this news she was quite expressive.  What a bummer to have to gear up for it again.
The ICU is certainly not the Marriott.  For Jackie her bed is straight and angled so that her head is up.  She cannot bend at the waist because they had to give her a femoral arterial line - I guess the wrists didn't work out too well.  For Mark and I there are two hard little chairs to sit on.  If they take the tube out one of us will stay with her tonight.  A few nights in these chairs will be exciting - there is a waiting room down the hall with padded chairs.  If the tube stayed in we were both going to go home, but she is not in any shape to be alone for awhile.
A doctor just came in and said he had put in the orders to get the tube out - what a relief.
As one of the anesthesiologists came to visit us in ICU he explained a little more clearly what the difficulty had been.  He said, "It is as though the Lord said to stop and not go any farther.  Like the writing was on the wall."
He said that he had another assignment for Thursday so he would not be in her surgery, but he wanted to be able to come and visit her.  He said they had all been touched by her; her story and her situation.  So are we.   ...and the tube just came out...