Well so much for a forum as a means of communication. I seem to have deleted Post number 2. Anyway Mark is in exactly the same situation: completely sedated in the critical care unit at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire. He is unaware of his surroundings. We have been visiting, but it is for our benefit not his - it is also the best way to try to extract some information from the staff, though waiting for a doctor can turn an intended 20 minute visit into 3 hours. They are now talking about at least 10 days sedation after the surgery which means they won't even try to wake him until Tuesday. The girls and I have therefore decided to come to Bath and Bristol to join Mark's family in the lead-up to Laurence (Mark's nephew) and Steff's wedding on Friday. In the era of mobile phones, communication is fairly straightforward - though we are further away than I had thought in that it took us three hours to get down here tonight. But then we did leave 2 hours later than intended (so caught traffic all the way) due to a wait at the hospital. The naughty side of me does wonder whether the doctors are in collusion with the parking people. I have started measuring time by how much the parking costs.