Saturday night dinner.

Laurie has spent the second day in the ICU for observation. As you would expect, he is getting bored with the view and no bicycle or kayaks in sight. Laurie is happy that he has full movement of both sides of his body. I got him to squeeze my hand to check his strength and he certainly hasn't lost any (ouch!).

His is able to get out of bed, walk to the bathroom, eat by himself which may seem minor to most of us ... but after brain surgery these are all important steps. Laurie is concerned, however, that he has some palsy (paralysis) of the left side of his face. This is effecting his speech to a small extent. Hopefully, this may be a temporary issue.

There is certainly nothing wrong with Laurie's memory or ability to think. When asked the standard question after an op "Who is the current Prime Minister?" he answered with "Kevin Rudd, my local member."

You may be interested to know what sort of heavy duty painkillers are given to Laurie after his brain surgery. Morphine, or maybe lots of morphine? No, he gets panadol !!! Laurie is one tough individual.

Laurie is enjoying hearing the comments that people are leaving here or emails showing your concern and thoughts. Please keep them up. (Although Julie, I won't be passing the kiss on to him!!)

The nurses (male and female) have been very good to Laurie and he wanted to make them famous by putting their photos on the blog. Below is Laurie and one of the nurses, Mark.