Finlish (Re-edited first part)

I have re-written the first part of my novel so I'll post the first part here. I fully believe it is so much better than the previous posting:

CHAPTER 1 (Part 1)
I never realized just how frail the human body can be. A simple malfunction of a blood artery can kill, paralyze, or cause permanent bodily damage.
Petra was lying on a hospital bed with a tube in her arm while I softly stroked her hair. She was unconscious and although the doctors called her condition a ‘coma’ I couldn’t bring myself to utter the word ‘coma’, (the word coma sounds so permanent), and so I substituted the word ‘sleeping’ instead.
While she slept, I walked over to a small bag, searched diligently, and found her hairbrush. I lumbered back to her bedside, careful to avoid the tube inserted in her arm. I brushed her hair gently and this seemed to give me some relief, or maybe it just distracted my mind from thinking about my own emotional pain, if only for a few moments.
The doctors were optimistic. They believed she would wake up, but they could not tell me anything more. They advised me to remain positive, but that wasn’t the easiest request in the world.
I had not slept for three days, as that was when her coma first started. I refused to leave the hospital, naively believing my presence would aid her in some way.
My daily meals since the start of Petra’s coma revolved around whatever the hospital cafeteria was serving. In Finland, there seems to be an abundance of fish meals. Normally this would be great, but I wasn’t very hungry, especially for fish.
Luckily a nurse took pity on me and made me a small bowl of chicken soup near the nurse’s station on the third day of Petra’s coma. It was probably made from a pouch of ready-to-eat instant Asian soup ingredients, but it tasted better than tepid fish. I thanked the nurse for the soup and even offered her some Euros as compensation for her kindness, but she declined.
Afterwards, at Petra’s bedside, I whispered into her ear that I loved her. I felt helpless, wondering if there was anything I could do to evoke a response. The pitchy beep of her medical monitor was the only reply I got.
I convinced myself to try some verbal stimulation to see if that might help her. I brought a British novel from home that Petra had started reading a week ago. She dog-eared a page in the novel. She had this habit of folding the corner of the page into a small triangle several times to mark her spot where she had stopped. I had never asked her why she did it. Now I wondered why she did this in this specific way. I was angry with myself that she could not answer me.
Page forty-six or page forty-seven? I did not know on which page she stopped, so I began reading from page forty-six. I apologized to her if I started on a page she had already read previously. Of course she couldn’t answer, but I pretended she could.
I was reading in the middle of page forty-nine when my attention was diverted to Petra’s mother standing at the door of the room. I closed the book, but before doing so, tried to emulate the dog eared fold Petra made to indicate the point on the page where she stopped. I fumbled with the paper and ended up making a crinkled mess of the page.
Standing up, I faced Petra’s mother Anna, who was only eight years older than me. Anna had stopped seeing Petra just before our marriage. She was in complete disapproval of our relationship from the beginning, and our marriage was the icing on the cake. She still was opposed to it. The opposition was not in my love for her daughter, which she knew was strong, but rather in the age difference. When we first married, I was nearly forty-five years old. Petra was almost twenty-six, nearly twenty years younger. Our hope was that Anna would eventually accept me as a son, but we had yet to see that day. I worried that Petra would never see that day…or any other day, for that matter.
I had not shaved or properly bathed in three days. The sleep deprivation also made me look much older. No doubt the gray hairs on my three-day beard contributed to that fact.
I approached her slowly and gazed into her tired eyes. Perhaps it was best if she started the conversation. After a few seconds, neither of us spoke, so I said something in a feeble attempt to break the ice cold atmosphere between us.
“Thank you for coming.”
I wanted to say that in the Finnish language, but my concentration was poor due to physical fatigue, so I could only speak my Native American English at that moment.
She walked briskly past me. I thought that she would completely ignore me. She saw her daughter lying on the bed with a tube in her arm, then burst into tears, spun around, and embraced me.
In Finnish she asked me a lot of questions. I answered most of the questions in English and a couple of questions in Finnish. I told her everything the doctors had told me. She then broke the hold, wiped her eyes, and looked at me.
“Is the baby alive?” she asked in English as she patted her eyes dry.
I grinned reassuringly. “Anna is just fine.”
“Anna?”
“Yes. We decided to name the baby Anna after you. Would you like to see the baby, your granddaughter?” I offered.
With eyes wide, she gaped at me in a moment of disbelief and said, “A grandmother. I’m a grandmother?”
“Yes, you are. Right now little Anna needs you. Petra needs you,” I breathed a heavy sigh, “and I need you too.”
Petra’s hospital bed was no more than a stride away, and Anna stood at the end of it, examining her daughter lying motionless beneath colorless sheets.
“I know you don’t approve of me. I’m not going to ask you for that approval.” There was nothing else I could say but that.
I walked over to her and looked at her with my worn-out bloodshot eyes. I placed my hands on her shoulders.
“Please don’t abandon Petra and your new grandchild,” I pleaded.
She looked at Petra and stood silent for a few moments. I wondered if my request was too much for her. Perhaps her feelings towards me would blind her feelings towards Petra and our new baby.
When what felt like an eternity passed, she finally met my gaze.
“Can I see the baby?” she asked.
“Of course, I’ll ask the nurse to arrange it.”
I left the room so I could speak to a nurse. I asked the nurse if it was possible to bring our baby to see her grandmother. The nurse said she would be able to do this in an hour.
On my way back to Petra’s hospital room, I took a detour into the men’s restroom (toilet) to wash my face. I looked at myself in the mirror wondering what ugly, disheveled person stared back at me from behind the mirror. That glass revealed just how old I was compared with Petra’s youth.
My imposing self-consciousness quickly passed as I reflected on my love for Petra—a love stronger than anything I had ever known. The passion between us was so deep that sometimes I wondered if everything was in fact a dream.
After washing my face a second time in an effort to try and keep awake, I scrutinized each wrinkle, each facial crevice in the mirror again, but that same man was still there. I told the mirrored reflection goodbye before drying my hands and shuffled back to Petra’s hospital room.