big day tomorrow

One of the specialist doctors, Dr. Silo, will be in tomorrow morning to evaluate Dad. He comes with extremely high recommendations, including one person who said that "If Ed is in there, the doctor will find him. And if he's not there, he'll tell you."

So, we're a little nervous. We all believe that Dad is still in there, somewhere. But, we don't know how best to show that to someone else (a.k.a., an "outsider"). Mom is going in to the hospital early to be there when the doctor comes by. The whole family has observed that Mom can get Dad to react in unique ways, ways that he doesn't react to any of the rest of us, and we really believe that that's because their connection is still there...because he is there. However, Dad's reactions have been a little hard to predict -- some days he's pretty "twitchy", and other days he just seems tired out. Also, we know that he doesn't do a lot of "purposeful" movement (yet), like jerking away from pain stimulus or dilating his pupils or opening his eyes. On the other hand, Dad apparently didn't open his eyes much after the aneurysm surgery, even before the stroke and coma. We're hoping that, for purposeful movement, Dad will relax his arm when Mom tells him to, as he was doing yesterday (and tonight!), and that that will be enough for the doctor to see some hope for us.

We'd like to ask for a whole bunch of prayers/thoughts:

• Responsiveness from Dad. Heck, if he'd just wake up before the doctor gets there, then everything would be dandy! ;)
  
• Serenity for Mom. This is not a command performance on her part, and if Dad isn't twitchy then we'll just figure something else out.
• Knowledge and faith for the doctor. Knowledge so that he can see what is best for Dad and the rest of the family. Faith because scientific knowledge is not all that there is to this world. And we have to believe that Dad's fate will be decided by more than just his actions tomorrow morning.

Thank you, everyone. I'll let you know how the meeting goes as soon as I find out tomorrow (I'm back in Portland again, so my knowledge is once again being relayed via Mom & Dawn).