I'm starting to feel like I'm repeating myself here, but I talked to Aaron yesterday and he said he's been sleeping a lot. I believe him because he sounded tired even then. In fact, it's really funny when you talk to him because he does this thing where he starts to gets sleepy, but he thinks he can make himself stay awake and talk to you if he just tries hard enough. When you know Aaron, you know how much he likes to talk, so it's not all that surprising that he persists in spite of heavy narcotics. He did it one night on the trip to Parris Island and made us all laugh. We were talking, and he was really tired, and his eyes were closing and closing a little more every second, but he kept wanting to talk, so he would start saying something and then he would trail off and just never finish his sentence. Eventually, after one of these unfinished sentences, he jerked back awake and told us he he been dreaming about containers of artificial coffee creamer in the brief seconds he'd been asleep. I don't know if it was quite that bad when I was talking to him yesterday, but I could kind of picture him fighting to stay awake during our conversation. So there isn't really a lot to report except that it sounds like he's still doing well and should be cleared to be discharged from Bethesda some time in the next couple of days. He has a check-up scheduled for Wednesday, and at that time his doctors might clear him to leave Bethesda, but it would still probably take a couple of days to get all the paperwork cleared and for him to actually leave. In the meantime, Aaron is still having lots of visitors from a church in the area and an occasional visit from strangers with relatives in the hospital who tell Aaron that they have come to meet the "famous Lance Corporal Rice." I think all his nurses have just fallen in love with him and brag on him all over the hospital, because he's become a minor celebrity there. Aaron loves it, but we're going to get suspicious of the medical staff's motives if they start claiming some new reason he can't leave Bethesda in the next week or so.
I hope to talk to a more alert Aaron sometime today, and when I do, I'll let y'all know. Keep praying for Aaron and Kelly.