I am so sorry about the lack of posts

Yesterday was a crazy busy day. We had so many visitors and I had to leave the hospital by 3:30 to catch my flight. Thank you to all of the visitors. I think it gave Dad a boost. And thank you to those of you who have sent flowers. They are all beautiful. I want to say thank you to Brock and Asenath, they spent a lot of time at the hospital with us. It was so nice to have them there to visit with, they helped keep my mind off things. And they brought treats!! Brock is going to be mowing the lawn for Dad. You have no idea how much stress that relieves. A huge thank you to Charleen. She has been taking care of Dads dog and staying the night with him and helping take care of Shane. She even cleaned Mom's house, took out the garbage, planted flowers, hung out at the Hospital and got me to the airport. How amazing is she? Mom's neighbor/friend/my second Mom Colleen is also helping to take care of things. We appreciate you all so much. I just didn't have time during the day to do a post and by the time I flew to Phoenix and drove the 2 hours to my house I was beat. I just wanted to spend some time with my family, have a shower and go to bed. I'm sorry about that. I know there are a lot of you that depend on these updates. I will do better. So lets see, lets start from yesterday afternoon. He has been trying really hard to use his pen to write. he couldn't quite hold onto it so he would make little scribbles. I felt like if the pen molded to his hand a little better he would be able to get the grip. I wrapped some of his Thera putty around the pen and he was able to hold it much better. He even wrote his name! Also the Nurses took Dad down for a shower and he walked the whole way with his walker. He is doing so good with his mobility. He had a really good night too. He is using his C-PAP mask to sleep at night and it has made a huge difference in the energy he has during the day. Today I talked to Mom and she filled me in on the happenings. This Morning at 7:30 (all of the times that I write will be Utah time) he went in for an ultra sound on his kidneys. He had to have the Ultra sound because high blood pressure causes the heart and kidneys to work double time. So the Ultra sound was to see if there is any damage to the kidneys we won't have those results until about 2:30. Dr. Garcia said that they are having a hard time stabilizing his blood pressure. They are trying a bunch of different medications to see what will work best for him. Dr. Garcia said that as soon as his blood pressure comes down they will let him leave ICU. That is the only thing keeping him there. They are hoping that he can move out of ICU today!!! We also know that his brain swelling is coming down because he is more alert and staying awake much more. When the brain has an injury it makes you sleep so it can try to heal itself. As of right now Dad is sitting in his chair reading his newspaper. How cool is that? Earlier today the Speech Therapist came in to see Dad. They did another swallow test and this time gave him pudding. He HATES pudding. I guess he was gagging and trying really hard to throw up. I feel bad for him but it kind of made me laugh, Dad has the worst gag reflexes. If you pretend your gagging, it will make him gag..... The Therapist said his swallowing is improving. Great news!! The therapist gave him some ice chips that he can munch on during the day. I think Dads speech is also getting better. Some things are still hard to understand but he has come a long ways. I talked with him on the phone a little bit ago and he was able to tell me about gagging on the pudding. He is still very emotional, this is normal with a brain injury, and it makes it hard for him to speak, but all in all he is doing really well. I will keep updating as soon as I hear things. I just have to wait until I hear from Mom. When I was at the hospital I would grab the Ipad and type while the Dr.s and nurses were talking. Mom is really busy, but we will do our best to keep everybody in the know. Thanks for following this journey with us. We love you all!