Good morning and thank you for your ongoing support and faithful prayers for Joy and your compassion and encouragement shown our family. Today marks one month since the accident, words fail me to express the surreal nature of the past 30 days, but again thank you for your faithful company as we’ve walked this road together.
Joy was more wakeful through last night and repeatedly asked questions, but did not seem distraught or disoriented. Then, I’d drifted off in the chair next to her bed and awoke just before 6:00 to see her sitting up in bed with her back side to me and her legs out the bottom right side. I’m glad to see she has that much mobility, but it scared me to death. I got her back laying down but she was very confused and disoriented. She’s sleeping again now as I write.
Joy rested much of the day yesterday as she recovered from Monday’s surgery. It was another day of roller coaster experiences which saw more emotional challenges with Joy’s ever increasing awareness, coupled with the confusion of traumatic brain injury, trying to make sense of all that is going on around her and happening to her. Joy doesn’t weep, but tears well up in her eyes and run down her cheeks as you see some degree of awareness break through the mental fog. Given the severe trauma to the right side of her head and a sinus fracture that bled out through her right ear for a long period after the accident, I assumed her right ear was not functioning, but for the first time today, she asked why she can’t hear with her right ear. She also discovered her chipped front tooth with her tongue (happened in the accident) and was confused and concerned about that. They are hard explanations to share with her.
However, on the positive news of yesterday, they downsized Joy’s trach in preparation for a speaking valve today, followed by capping, and then decannulation (no more trach)! That won’t be all in one day, but it’s great progress and I can then stop my abysmal lip reading and hear what Joy actually has to say to me.
On another very positive note, OT came to assess and do some therapy. Although Joy’s right arm and hand are still very weak, she was able to grasp with both hands, raise and reach with both arms, and raise, flex, and push with both legs and feet. When the therapist asked her to sit up on the side of the bed, she swung herself up and around and with only the therapist’s light touch on her back, sat on the edge of the bed. And with just the therapist holding under one arm, she stood for what seemed like an amazingly long time. She then sat back down on the side of the bed and was upright unsupported for at least a minute. In fact she did so well that the therapist questioned if she was actually ready for an inpatient rehab program, a step beyond the move we are currently looking at in going to an LTAC. It was very encouraging. Throughout the day and into the evening staff kept coming by to express their amazement at her progress since her initial admission here and to encourage her in her Herculean efforts at recovery.
Please continue to pray that our direction for Joy’s care and our path back to MN will become abundantly clear and the necessary criteria and authorizations can all be accomplished. And of course please continue to hold up Joy’s many physical, neurological, cognitive, and emotional needs in prayer for continued and thorough healing.