8/16/06 Wednesday 24 Days Post Accident

            This morning when I came to your room you were already sitting in the Neuro chair.  Aunt Kathy was at your bedside and she told I was coming down the hall.  You leaned forward in your chair to look for me.  Aunt Kathy had told me you had asked “Where’s Mom” before I got to your room. 

            Your surgery to re-wire your jaw is scheduled at noon today.  You are getting bored in your room.  I went to my office to pick up your “toys” Daniel, Jonathan, and Thomas brought you.  The “toy” you wanted to play was the hand held poker game.

            You were also asking for water again.  The nurse brought you a small medicine cup, put some water in it, and gave you an oral swab.  We would place the swab in the water and gave it to you to suck on.

            You were asking the nurse when you would be able to eat and drink.  We then asked if you could have some Gatorade.  The nurse agreed and you gave big thumbs up on that.  Aunt Kathy went and bought you a bottle of Powerade.  You could only have the amount that would go on the oral swab—you were very eager and persistent on keeping the oral swab moistened with Powerade.  At one point you motioned with your hand if you could have the bottle to drink.

            The patient care partner was at your bedside emptying the reservoir bag from the humidified air tubing that goes to your trach.  You quickly looked to her to see what she was doing, as you heard the water being emptied. You wrote to me you thought she was pouring out your Powerade.

            You were in surgery for 2 hours to re-wire your jaw. Dr. McKenna had to drill a hole in your cheek bone to pace a “suspension wire” through to hold up your arch bar on your upper jaw.  Dr. McKenna expects you to be wired for at least one more week.  When they remove the wires the “suspension” wire will be removed a well.  Dr. McKenna also stated how amazed he was with the healing of your inside wound on your lower jaw.

8/16/06 Wednesday’s Day End Report

            You made it back to you room around 6:15pm.  The nurse allowed us to come back and see you for a short while, even though it was after visitation hours.  Your Dad was itching to get back and see you.  He was pacing the halls waiting for you to get back to your room from surgery.

            Again you were awake, alert, and NOT ON the ventilator.  You are officially done with all of your known scheduled surgeries!  Now we need to focus on the other items to conquer (i.e. your trach, the g/j tube, foley catheter, and your abdominal wound).  The frustrating part about all of these items is; none of them come with an exact timeframe.

            So, again, the mantra goes – you are in a marathon not a sprint – all of this is going to take a long time as you are also going to have to go through rehabilitation to strengthen your body, learn how to walk with crutches, not put weight on your left foot until your ankle bones fuse, and doing activities of daily living that you will need to make adjustments to due to your injuries, not to mention rehab your mind.  There may be aspect of your cognition (thinking), memory, etc that you will need to work on for a while.

            There is one thing I know about you that will make this journey a success and that is you are a fighter, you will take this as a challenge, and work hard to get yourself back to completeness.  You have always loved a good challenge and you have got a few!

            For tonight I pray you will have a restful night with as little pain as possible on your ankle or your mouth.  Sleep well; we will be with you in the morning.  We Love You!