Casper Dik's Visit to Alec

Got this report via Bart at Sun (thanks!).

I visited Alec noon, Saturday 8 July. […]

Alec was very tired but, according to his brother-in-law, doing much better than yesterday. He said he had slept reasonably well which was why he couldn’t see anyone earlier that morning. I thought he looked well, considering; certainly much better than I had anticipated. Somewhat confused about the time of day; hardly surprising, if you doze off now and again. I took a few pictures and will see about posting them somewhere, later.

His hemoglobin levels are now stable which may signal an end to his internal bleeding. He still has a chest drain which seems to be troubling him when breething. And his stomach is protesting about lack of drink and food as he’s still not allowed food or drink so he has to make do with “aqua sprays”; both to keep cool and to keep his mouth moist.

Kidneys and spleen are still suspect, but they aren’t worried about his liver (contrary to earlier messages). He gets paracetamol but not much else by way of pain control (he didn’t like the morphine much and his happy as is).

He demonstrated the all-important art of toe-wiggling and was completely “there”. But speaking tired him very much, so not quite the talkative Alec we all know. So I read him the batch of well-wishes which arrived before I collected them at 7am this morning.

Alec thanks you all for your kind messages and thoughts.

It’s still unclear when he will be moved home or to which hospital; this was somewhat hampered by the inability to call 800 numbers from abroad. […]

All in all, I’m pretty positive about Alec’s condition.