Not joyous tidings

    So it has not been a good couple of days. Friday as of lunchtime, Dad was lucid, coherent and in command. He fed himself lunch, he picked up his drink for himself and he needed almost no help. He spoke in complete sentences. I left when Margaret arrived because my sister Anne and my brother Malcolm were both coming down from Boston (separately) and there are only two visitors at a time allowed in the ICU. But I assumed Dad would continue to do fine.
    So when I heard he was being moved from the ICU back to the Intermediate ICU, I thought that this was the best sort of news. However, when I went to visit yesterday (Saturday) morning, things were not so rosy. He was no longer in charge, and could only speak in one-word bursts. "Tea!" we could cope with, but "Uncomfortable" not so much. We did the best we could, however. Malcolm and Anne between them shaved him, and fed him. Anne insists on bringing him outside food, including cookies. I wish she could just learn to say, "I love you, Dad," instead.
    When Margaret arrived and asked how he was doing, he answered softly and we couldn't hear him. He said it over and over until finally I picked it up: "Halfway good." So he's still in there. We are sad, and we are worried, but we are still hopeful. We aren't hearing much about prognosis from the doctors; we aren't hearing much of anything from the doctors. But he's still in there fighting, so we are, too.