He SMILED!!

The stopped the sedation after they took out the tube. They don't think he's going to fight as much if the tube isn't in. He's still got a breathing mask on, but he is breathing completely on his own. His throat is going to hurt for a long time because of the tubes. But he opened his eyes and he is looking at all of us. He's moving his head toward whoever is talking to him. We tried to get him to answer some yes or no questions, and he can nod and shake his head.

It's hard to keep the one sided conversation going, but we find lots of things to tell him about. My mom was joking about my dad's long eyebrows (a long time family joke) and we told him that we were going to trim them while dad was sleeping, but we were afraid that Daniel wouldn't recognize dad when he woke up - and Daniel SMILED! he got this big grin on his face under the breathing mask. It was the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Daniel still looks miserable and we know he's in a lot of pain, but we're glad that we're here to comfort him and that he can wake up and see the whole family. We can't wait until he's out of ICU and can see everyone!