by Allison Moore | Jul 17, 2014 | Uncategorized |
First off, thank you to those who turbo-charged their prayers for Vernon last night and today. Please don’t stop yet. I think he is close to a breakthrough. I am believing for it, anyway.
As mentioned in my previous post, today was the day I planned to spend less time at the hospital and get back to a kind of working schedule. (Being an artist, at least I’m free to choose my own hours–which usually means not working at all.)
It was strange…suddenly the time with Vernon in his room felt different. It wasn’t like the early days of keeping vigil for hours at a time. Now I wanted to WORK, I wanted him to work. I wanted to see something. No more soft music, its time for rock and roll. He’s been sleeping long enough. Its time for electric guitars, drums, maybe even some horns!
Even he seemed aware of it today. I know I am possibly projecting my feelings onto him, but I felt that he wanted to match my intensity somehow. He started responding to my questions with squeezing again, which he hadn’t shown the strength for all week. And he started to move his thumb on my command. Not much, but it was consistent! This is one of the things (you may remember) that the doctors want to see…if the brain can send the signal to the hand to separate the thumb or have the fingers eventually make a peace-sign, it shows that cognitive connections are being made. Something as complicated as shooting the bird would surely be cause for celebration!
After his success, I gave him a break and got back to my own business on the laptop. While responding to an email, I looked up and noticed his hands BOTH starting to move, fingers gently (though barely) bending. This was the first time I’d seen his left hand (the one on the broken arm) moving at all, except for the occasional posturing and that is typical of a TBI* patient.
I checked with the Dialysis Technician quietly reading the paper beside me. “Did you see that? LOOK!” He agreed he saw something, though he probably wasn’t as interested in these details as I tend to be.
I jumped up and started working on commands to his left hand. Sure enough, he was able to squeeze it in response to my questions. And when I asked if he could move his thumb, he COULD! Again, it was small, but noticeable, and very much on cue. So I feel that we are in the middle of a new breakthrough. I am so pleased to see this rush of connection and strength through his hands.
Please keep him in your prayers this weekend. I’d love to say that THIS was the weekend that there was another big change. Like I said last night: IT IS TIME. I hope you will join me in believing it.
Speaking of hands, a friend just sent me this picture today, Vernon and one of his hands…showing off the simple Navajo wedding band he bought himself (I would hand it to him a week or so later.) I’ve been wearing that ring for the past 8 weeks, under my own ring, since the doctors handed it to me right before emergency surgery. I kind of like it there…might not give it back.
And here are my hands today–well, just the gloves–after starting a mural. I had bought supplies for this project the morning of Vernon’s accident. (Another story for another time.) These are hospital grade gloves from Vernon’s room, just in my size too… I hit the glove jackpot there, I tell you. I’ll be stocking up.
Just put it on our bill.
*Traumatic Brain Injury
by Allison Moore | Jul 16, 2014 | Uncategorized |
I’d love to say more interesting things about Vernon’s recovery today, but the truth is, the day was filled with ‘life’ things.
I know a lot of us have this idea that life is full of lessons and when the waves of circumstance keep crashing on us, we are supposed to wonder: “what lesson is this teaching me?” Its the self-help attitude that I have been a huge subscriber in…until now.
You know what? Sometimes there ISN’T a lesson. Let’s stop taking it personally. Sometimes its JUST LIFE. Life just keeps coming…it doesn’t stop even if we feel we deserve that it should be gentler.
Maybe what I need to learn from these so called lesson-waves is that life just keeps moving, no matter what. It just keeps coming, wave after wave. I can’t take it personally if I already have a lot on my plate. I should be happy that I can handle it all. (As can we all, even if we don’t like it.) The day to day problems can be empowering, even in their un-welcomed way.
The other day, my beloved external hard drive (holding most of my photos of the past few years) crashed. Ugh. So I had to figure out (without the Tech Genius in the house) how to send that off for a fix. Dreams of memories past: still pending. Yesterday, I had to deal with motorcycle insurance stuff…apparently one office in the company had not communicated to the other side of the building that we had put in a claim. So stupid time was spent on that. Today, I spent my time trying to re-log onto The Covered-CA insurance website (in other words, make a complicated new password.) And then the bank called, saying some glitch in information was going to freeze all of Vernon’s accounts, and therefore, mine, and in order to rectify things, I’d have to go into an office and start all over. Annoying, of course. And I won’t even mention the number of time-outs Justine has been put on in the past week.
These things happen every day. Please don’t think I am making a blog about my humdrum complaints. That is the last thing I want to do. (I do NOT condone complaining on Facebook, even though I probably look like I’m doing it every day.)
My REAL point is: LIFE GOES ON.
These are the same kinds of things that might happen to us any day of the year. Weirdly, there is something grounding about it. Something, annoyingly familiar. And when you have been living in the most extreme season of your life, that is surprisingly normalizing. Its strangely nice to feel annoyed about normal things, to complain about the bank or an insurance mix-up. You know?
The hospital is great, I love the comfort of being near Vernon and the people who are near him. But tomorrow I plan to start working again, and getting back into a more normal routine. Its time for both Vernon and myself to remember we have lives to get back to.
At the same time, I feel more present with Vernon in a practical way today. I was shown I could wash his face and hair. I had brought Justine’s ‘my little pony’ brushes along anyway. So the timing was perfect.
They say every person with TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) has a family with TBI at the same time. I guess in my way, my added activity in my own (and my family’s) life is proactive. If as a married couple, Vernon and I are ONE, and we live in these parallel stages of awareness, I hope my moving forward for myself will activate a kind of moving forward for himself.
I will still visit him every day. But I am ready to move forward another step. And I would like to think he is too.
I know so many are praying, but for you that do, would you mind putting it into full-throttle? Its TIME. At least, I feel its time. Lets get a move on here! This Friday marks 8 weeks.
COME ON!!!!!
My friend Christine Adolph sent me this picture last night, taken just days before the accident. Its amazing how prophetic her light leaks were. Vernon’s pelvis is shining with light and also the back of his head, which did receive a wound and a skull-crack as well. I would like to believe there is something divine about this picture, as if it speaks to healing and wonder, though it was taken while Vernon was still living his normal previous life.
by Allison Moore | Jul 15, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
I have had this analogy forming in my head for over a month now, but I am afraid that putting it to words may not work well. Here’s trying. I know the idea has been helpful to me, I just hope it makes sense to someone else.
Rock climbing. Or rather rock-wall climbing. I’ve only tried it a couple of times, and because I didn’t do well at it, I gave up and never really got the basics of it into my body or brain. Climbing upward from one hand/foot-hold to another, I would get stuck often because I liked the comfort of a firm-feeling grasp I might find and then not want to move on if I couldn’t find equally-comfortable footing. Then I would get fatigued, blindly searching for another place for my foot or other hand. And I wouldn’t get anywhere. In fact, I gave up before I gave it another go. Had I tried again, trusted a different approach, I might have gotten better, or at least have achieved a higher view or feeling of accomplishment.
I imagine for rock-climbers, it isn’t comfort-zone to comfort-zone, like it might be on a ladder or a path. I imagine its also a sideways journey at times, maybe even a couple steps back down the mountain in order to get better footing to move forward again, stronger than before.
Back to the hospital/recovery scenario with Vernon: there have been many times that I hold on to one area of his improvement with my left hand. For example, I held on to his hand-squeezes for a week, but then there wasn’t enough change to stay there for long, no upward motion. I needed to find a place for my right hand, and there was nothing in sight. I found myself scrambling for better news and began to accept new unexpected footholds, even if they seem out of the way from the direction I wanted to focus on. Maybe it’s the move to a new room, maybe its another tube or monitor being removed from Vernon’s body, another story of recovery from a TBI patient.
Sometimes, when I am obsessed with a certain angle of recovery, this new foothold can feel like a step backward at first, just because it isn’t the thing I want to see most that day. But it isn’t really going backward at all; it is actually a lateral movement, which is part of the upward momentum when all of it comes together. The journey in my mind is what is changing. The experience isn’t a straight line. But it is good. And unlike my previous rock-wall attempts, I can’t give up this round. Therefore, it will be rewarding. It already is.
Today I felt like I was climbing the walls out of sheer boredom. Being a busy, project-minded type, I don’t like things to stay the same for long. I have run out of creative ideas to help my husband, and so I was beginning to get annoyed and well…bored. A more familiar kind of wall-climbing.
AND THEN, these three things happened:
The Infectious Disease Specialist came by today to tell me that Vernon has been off antibiotics for a week. He said Vernon’s white blood cell count was back to normal and I shouldn’t be expecting to see him again. All signs of infection are gone from Vernon’s body. I’d almost forgotten about the scare from a couple of weeks ago…it was like looking back to a crevice in the rock waaaay behind us.
Here is a really foggy (or arty?) picture of Dr. Wilkins checking on his handiwork after the final wrapping was removed from Vernon’s forearm. He was happy with the healing of the pelvis and femur too, by the way. I love listening to surgeons assess their own work: it truly is something they should be proud of. Vernon’s bones are almost completely healed now, which is a blessing and when Vernon fully wakes up, he won’t have to deal with the pain of broken bones. Some soreness, for sure, but not a broken bone! I think if I were him, that’s the way I’d want it too.
And I’m also thankful that Vernon wasn’t awake to see his gorgeous respiratory therapist today. This lady gives Sophia Vergara a run for her money (with a South American accent too!) She’s great, but lets hope she isn’t the one in the room when he fully wakes up. Or maybe for his sake, maybe she should be! I have this on good authority: all the female nurses look at her and wonder why their scrubs don’t look the same.
Yes, another reason to be thankful. God bless lateral thinking. Goodness is everywhere. Lets keep reaching for it.
Lets keep climbing.
For the big thinkers, if you want an even better theory on Lateral Thinking, here is a great one:
“At first the truths Phaedrus began to pursue were lateral truths; no longer the frontal truths of science, those toward which the discipline pointed, but the kind of truth you see laterally, out of the corner of your eye. In a laboratory situation, when your whole procedure goes haywire, when everything goes wrong or is indeterminate or is so screwed up by unexpected results you can’t make head or tail out of anything, you start looking laterally. That’s a word he later used to describe a growth of knowledge that doesn’t move forward like an arrow in flight, but expands sideways, like an arrow enlarging in flight, or like the archer, discovering that although he has hit the bull’s eye and won the prize, his head is on a pillow and the sun is coming in the window. Lateral knowledge is knowledge that’s from a wholly unepected direction, from a direction that’s not even understood as a direction until the knowledge forces itself upon one. Lateral truths point to the falseness of axioms and postulates underlying one’s existing system of getting at truth.”
Robert M Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Allison Moore | Jul 13, 2014 | Uncategorized |
“There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” Edwin Denby
As already mentioned, lots to rejoice about this weekend: Vernon’s upward mobilization at the hospital (3rd to 4th floor), Maki having a great time in THE SHIRE (on bucket list for the rest of us), an amazing night under the full moon for Justine and myself. And need I add: that perfect square of dance-floor above.
And YET, the list continues. Maybe being on a new floor gives me the confidence to ask for more. I asked if Vernon could be moved down in the gauge-size of his trach, and they did it! The moved him to a 6!
(I am speaking of the little tube in his neck, used for breathing. These tubes go 10-8-6-4-2, size-wise. He had been on a 10, and somehow the 8 got slipped in there recently without my knowledge.)
Anyway…a 6 is great! It is possible to cap a 6-gauge trach, meaning they could actually close up his neck for breathing at this level and he could start breathing on his own. Since the trach is one of the challenges limiting us to long-term rehabilitation centers, this progress is certainly something to be joyful about. And for the past 24 hours, he has been doing great on the 6! Go, Vernon, go! Just like the quiet warrior he always has been.
Also, there is a new diagnosis about his kidneys that will allow us to change into better health insurance. I couldn’t have seen this coming, but that will open up our options for long-term care as well. So far, there will be little help from the auto insurance of the other driver, so this is a good thing! Thank you again for all your love and kindness and prayer! It’s obviously powerful stuff!
If you feel like celebrating with us…here is a little ukulele therapy brought in by Dante (Maki’s best friend’s big brother.) Among other tunes, he played this Kinks song for Vernon.
by Allison Moore | Jul 13, 2014 | Uncategorized |
The air was thick and still and cool
The earth was slowly spinning…
The stars were bright and new
I saw you there in the beginning.
And I hung the moon for you…
I heard your every cry
I knew the rhythm of your laughter
And how my heart was torn in two
By all that would come after
Still I hung the moon for you
Don’t think twice
Lean against the wind, its alright
I’m holding on, I’m holding on,
I’m holding on to you
So rest and dream
Though I don’t slumber
Know I’m dreaming with you
With heart so full of tenderness and love
And wonder for you
I hung the moon for you…
(by Kate Miner*)
*listen to song here
by The Maki | Jul 12, 2014 | Day by Day, Uncategorized |
Today I went to Hobbiton, first we got on the bus and had to wait at the gift shop/cafe for 15 mins and then of to Hobbiton we went, as we arrived we went through Gandalfs cutting and then we followed through the guided tour and then at the end we stopped at the green dragon and had a drink.
