Day 4 – March 28, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXrJdOD5syo&feature=youtu.be
I awoke at 2:15 am Thursday from bad dreams and feeling fear, anger and worry. I was not due at the hospital to relieve Pete until 6:00, but I got up and wrote because I couldn’t get back to sleep. I posted Wednesday’s update and got in the shower, setting intentions to turn the feelings into something positive. I got to the hospital at 4:30 am, where Pete told me that they had also had a rough night. Jess, who is more active now that we are lessening his pain meds, thrashed and moaned, trying to jump up from bed to go to the bathroom (he’s not allowed to walk by himself yet). I sent Peter to our temporary home to get some sleep and settled in for the day.
My nerves were already frayed and the adrenaline had worn off; operating on just 4 hours of sleep, the words of several friends to take care of myself moved through my mind. I felt the brewing of a storm at the edge of my consciousness, but was determined to make the day a good one.
Today’s conversations were about rehabilitation. Yesterday, the announcement that Jess needed inpatient rehab struck us dumb, but of course it makes sense. While Jess’ prognosis is good, we are seeing some mild cognitive issues, and his balance is still off when he walks. He’s using the walker, but is picking it up off the ground instead of letting it support him; it is so strange to see his youthful energy trying to express through his broken body. He is strong and healthy, so he has urges to move but not the impulse control to remember he is injured yet. He requires constant supervision. Inpatient rehab is a good idea.
We heard that Lucerne here in Orlando accepted him as a good candidate, but that Shands in Gainesville felt he was doing too well for their facility. I took this as a good thing until the speech therapist said that she felt strongly that Jess would benefit from inpatient rehab regardless of how well he seemed to be doing. She educated us that mild cognitive issues have only recently come to the attention of medical professionals as a real issue to be dealt with. These are the kinds of cognitive dysfunctions that cause people to fail in their lives, whether because they cannot concentrate and lose their job, or have emotional outbursts and lose their relationships, etc. She said it is just recently that mild cognitive dysfunction has showed up on the healing community’s radar and that Jess needed everything we could get for him. We agree; our mantra is “whatever is best for Jess to be healed and whole.” We settled on Lucerne and planned to have Jess discharged on Friday if they had a bed open.
The various therapists worked with Jess and noticed that he seemed fatigued. He is still healing from the surgery as well as the initial injury, and we think that it is finally catching up to him. I know from my personal as well as practitioner experience that healing takes a lot of energy, that it can catch up to you and that tiredness is a symptom of that. Jess had his first shower since the accident and insisted on standing under the hot water (one of his great joys) instead of sitting on the shower seat. The effort of the day’s activities maxed him out, and he fell asleep hard.
He awoke from this hard sleep very confused and disoriented. After days of accurately answering questions about where he was and why he was at the hospital, he could now not remember those things. This was new, and Peter correctly called the nurse in. Suddenly, the entire medical team was swarming around Jess, taking vitals and asking more probing questions as they tested his eyes, bilateral strength and reflexes. An emergency CT scan was ordered, and Jess was whisked away, leaving us alone in his hospital room.
It was at this point that I reached out for Peter’s and Aidan’s hands, and the three of us held one another, dropping onto the floor to our knees. We prayed urgently in our way that Jess be healed and whole, and that our family know what we could do to help him be healed and whole. The intensity and emotion created a palpable field of energy around us, and I felt elevated and surrounded by a feeling of love. Our surrender was the key, I think…the stripping away of one’s life as they know it will invite the most hardened into a softer, vulnerable state.
I’d had a conversation with a lovely woman about pride in the ICU on Day 1; she reminded me that blocking blessings was caused by an over-abundance of pride. It is akin to that self-protective reflex I mentioned in the “Allowing” post. As I have contemplated this, I now understand why it is important to be on our knees when we ask for spiritual help, propose marriage, and wash another’s feet as an act of homage. Surrender is the humbling of our agenda in order to meet a larger one. We were so very afraid for our Jess that we were literally brought to our knees this day. Really, this whole experience has been a series of acts of surrender.
When Jess returned from the CT scan, he seemed a bit more lucid, and we waited together to hear the results. All tests came back stable. He was okay, no new horror to assimilate.
As the evening wore on, we felt as if we dodged a bullet; we learned that it is not uncommon for brain injured patients to have confusion upon awakening, but because it was so different from Jess’ previous behavior, it was the right thing to do to check it out. The medical team has decided to keep Jess until Saturday and now Shands (which is only 2 hours from our home in Tallahassee) has accepted him as a candidate for inpatient therapy. I will stay with Jess in Gainesville for the duration, which could be 7-10 days, and then I can bring him home for outpatient therapy for some months while working extensively with him at home utilizing Brain Gym and other modalities.
Jess is sleeping peacefully tonight as I write today’s update; and I feel peaceful that we are in such good hands.
Xo
Licia
A friend has created a fundraising campaign for the unbelievable medical expenses Jess’ healing and recovery is incurring. If you feel you’d like to help or that you have benefited from our story, you can help us here!
