Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....: Progress and moving on!

Friday, June 22, 2007

Progress and moving on!

Hi everyone,

Just a little update. Jim is having a great week. Wednesday the staff took him to the Indian Museum downtown. For those who don't know, Jim is an artist and loves to paint Indians.

They said he really enjoyed his time there and was showing them the different artist. He has begun to paint, again and has his easel and paints in his room.

Yesterday, he got the long awaited feeding tube out. The only outward sign left of his injury is his neck brace.

The VA staff have all been wonderful with Jim. They go above and beyond their duties and treat him as family. My family and I will never be able to thank them enough for their kindness and compassion. Laura, Tasha, Sandi, Dottie, Vicki Sherri, Mary, Carla, Craig, Dana, Leigh Ann, Jenny, Jackie, Audrey, Ramona and everyone else I may have missed, Thank you! Also, Dr. Buschbacher and Carlos. You have all been so helpful during the darkest of times. We consider them friends. But, it is time for Jim to move on. Wednesday, the 27th, he will enter Hook Rehab in Indy for, what we hope, will be his last stop before returning home. As I have mentioned before, Jim does not do change well. He is still focused on going home so I am a little nervous about his reaction to this change.

Again, I want to thank all of you who sent Jim a birthday card. They continue to pour in. (Pete and Pam, we did receive yours on Wednesday, thank you!) (Steve Korn, we look forward to your visit to Indy!) We read each on to Jim and taped them all to his window.

Please keep our son Jason and his wife Lynnette in your prayers. They are in Russia picking up their new baby girl! God's gift to us in the midst of all of this. Jim and I have been blessed with the most wonderful children anyone could ask for. Kelli, Jason, Andrew, Anna and Joe are loving, supportive and kind. Their spouses, Lynnette, April and Mike have been generous and supportive of the time and energy this has taken from their own families. I want to publicly thank each of them for their love.

That's all for now. God Bless. Have a great day!

Sue

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: Thanks for the exciting news...it's truly amazing how far Jim has come from that very first day...God indeed is good!Let us know the address for
your new location and Steve will look forward to seeing you there :)
love you
Helen & Steve; June 22, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Hello
Tell Jim Happy Birthday for me Roy call him ,they talk for a little while. I hope Jim does fine on his move.Tell him to hang in there things are geting better, and he his doing great.We are leaving for Boston Sat.Will call you in a few days.We love you all. Bill& Norene; June 22, 2007 at 9:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Dear Sue, Jim and all,

Thanks for the update. We're so happy to hear that Jim was able to take a "field trip" and enjoy the museum. We're thrilled to hear that Jim is painting again. This is probably really good for him--who knows, maybe art will be his next career!

When you all return to Fort Wayne, we'd love to come over and see his paintings and talk about what mediums he enjoys working in. Would that be OK, Jim?

Congratulations on your new granddaughter! How exciting! How many grandkids does that make for you? We have eight ranging in age from 4 to just turned 12 years. (You do the math--that's right, someone was always pregnant for eight years and nine months!) What fun times!

We will be praying for this next change coming up on Wednesday. We will ask God to calm Jim's heart and mind and prepare him to receive this move--and see it as progress.

Love and Prayers,

Rosa and Ken; June 24, 2007 at 8:08 PM
Admin said...: I've been out of town a few days. How wonderful to return and see such good news!

Will pray for a smooth transition for him and all of you.; June 25, 2007 at 10:36 AM

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The story as we know it...

On Friday morning (Jan. 19th) around 10:50am, i recieved a call from my brother Joe telling me that he needed me at the house. I asked him what for and he told me that dad had hurt himself somehow...he had a black eye, his nose was bleeding and was "a little beat up". I immediatly got into my car and started heading that way. I called Joe back and asked him for more details and he told me that he was having a hard time getting dad up. I told him to call the EMS and he said that he thought Jason had already done that and he was on his way. When i pulled up, i saw the EMS was already there. I walked in and i saw Jason, Anna, Joe and several EMS people along with dad sitting on a gurney. They imediately took dad out in the EMS...not knowing what was wrong...just that something really wasnt right. We followed the EMS to parkview ER and had to go wait. Mom met us there as she flew across town to get there. We had to wait a long time (it seemed like days!) before we were told what was going on. The chaplain kept coming out to "brief"us...but thats all it was, a "brief". Finally, the ER doctor called the family together and told us the news...dad has a broken neck and he is bleeding in and on his brain on both sides....this is very serious. "Its a bad deal" the ER doc kept on saying, but we had to wait until the surgeon would come in and take a look at the CT scan before we could find out for certian what was wrong. Dr. Young finally came in and said that he had looked at dad and his scan. Dr. Young was very "matter of fact" with us which was good. We needed that! He told us very similar things to what the ER doctor told us. He said that dad had broke his neck, C2 to be exact. He also said that he was bleeding in several areas in his brain. He needed brain surgury immediatly. On a scale of one to ten...with ten being the worst...dad was a "plus 10". Dad went into surgury and was there for 3.5 hours or so...he came out of surgury fine but we found out the damage was worse than they had thought. They had to remove some of the damaged area and he would be on life support. We were told that the next 3-10 days are life and death...or very critical. What we think what happend is something as follows: Dad was sleeping down in the basement which is a normal thing. Between 8:30am and 10:30am, he tried going upstairs. This info is a little sketchy because we werent there, but based on some of the info that we have seen, we think that he tripped on the stair going up and fell...hitting his right eye on the stereo and then hitting face first on the ground. This created the damage that we are aware of. We spoke with the cardiologist today and found out that dad has also had a heart attack with in the last eight days, but they have not figured out exactly when. There is a thought that this might have caused the fall be we are uncertain. Dad is in stable but "second to second" condition. If and when dad comes out of the "coma" state, there will likely be many months of therapy that needs to be done, plus until the brain issues are resolved, they can not even think about looking at his broken neck. To sum it all up...dad is in very bad condition. We thank you all for all of your prayers and support and all of the food and gifts. Your love for my dad and our family is amazing and we are extremely grateful. We will continue to update you as we know more. Please continue to pray!! Pray for dad (jim) for healing. Pray for mom (sue) that she can continue to be strong. We do know that we most likely havent seen the worst yet. This is when we need your prayers the most. Please feel free to enter your thoughts on this blogspot as we will update you as we know more. We are very thankful for the love you all have shown.

Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....

Friday, June 22, 2007

Progress and moving on!

4 comments:

Dad with Alena at Christmas

The story as we know it...

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