In Which I Forget An Anniversary And The Heat Wave Continues

I realized today that the third anniversary of Jer's injury in Afghanistan came and went last week and didn't even cross my mind.  Jer didn't mention it either.  I think it's kind of nice that we've gotten to the point that we don't feel it's a date we need to dwell on.  While the event definitely changed our lives, mostly what it changed was the details.  Jer's still the same wonderful man I began a relationship with over a decade ago.  I'm pretty glad about that.

In other news, Connor woke up running a fever this morning and had two seizures right off the bat.  Today was not a fantastic day for a fever, as it was supposed to be one of the hottest days of the year.  I figured the best thing to do would be to vacate the house and rent a hotel room, which I wasn't really looking forward to but couldn't think of another good solution.  Luckily the same gracious friend who let us hang out all day yesterday opened up her home to us again, this time for the entire night if necessary.

Connor ended up rallying towards the end of the day, and his fever disappeared as mysteriously as it came.  So we left for home around 8:30 in the evening.  It's cooled down enough that Connor's back in his room now, and the worst of the hot weather should be over for a while.  If we do get more hot weather it will be after we have our air conditioner installed, which happens on Tuesday.  Then we'll have one less thing to worry about!

~Jess

In Which Connor Is A Sleepy Guy And Jer Trains For Some Modeling Of The Peer Variety

Connor spent most of the day today falling asleep in various uncomfortable looking positions.  He dozed off in the car, in his wheelchair while we were at the grocery store, draped over the corner of the couch-- basically anywhere but his bed, where he refused to even consider closing his eyes.  He went to bed some time after midnight last night, so I guess the last couple of days are starting to catch up with him.

The good news is that he only had one seizure today, and he seems to have stopped running a fever.  So my guess is that he had some sort of little bug and he's on the mend now.  Unless he has a really tough day tomorrow, I think we can stay home instead of heading to the doctor's office. 

Jer spent most of today at a training session; he's becoming a peer mentor for the Wounded Warrior Project so that he can help other soldiers and their families through their recovery process.  I'd call Jer pretty well completely recovered (other than the whole half-a-missing-calf and the possible amputation a decade down the line) so I think he's in a great position to be a peer mentor.  Of course I have a completely biased opinion, but I think he'd make a fantastic role model.  He's certainly one of mine!

~Jess

In Which I Let You All Know How Jer Is Doing

Over the past few weeks a whole bunch of you have asked for an update on how Jeremy's doing, so I thought I'd let you all know!  It's been about a year and eight months since he got blown up, believe it or not.  Time flies, huh?

The short, quick answer is that he's doing really, really well.

The longer answer is that he's gained back all the function that he'll have at this point.  What that means for him is that he's able to walk with only a slight limp, run short distances and go about his daily business without a cane or any assistive devices.  It's pretty awesome, and way, way beyond what the doctors typically see with injuries of this kind.  I think Jeremy's work ethic has a whole lot to do with that.

Uneven terrain, long distances and really hard surfaces are always going to be an issue, and as Jeremy gets older the amount of functional use he has will change.  Of course that's true for everybody-- I bet I'm not going to be as spry in my seventies as I was in my twenties either.  We don't know what kind of new surgeries or assistive technology will be out there in another couple of decades, so in the meantime Jer's focusing on preserving as much functionality as he can for as long as possible. 

How does he do that?  Well for one thing, he works out all the freakin' time.  Usually he hits the gym a couple of times a day right now; he's able to deadlift twice his body weight at this point and is darn close to doing the same with his squat.  For those of you who don't know a whole lot about weight lifting, what that means is that he's in pretty decent shape.  He figures that the better shape he keeps his body in, the longer he'll be able to stay mobile.  It's a pretty good assumption, and trust me when I say that I don't mind at all. 

So that's your Jeremy update! 

~Jess

In Which We Film Some More, And Connor Is Pouty

So this morning was a continuation of the grand filming saga, only this time it was on the army post and with a whole bunch of other people-- basically we were filming one of the  meetings (called a Comprehensive Transition Plan, or CTP meeting) that the training video will be focusing on.  The most basic explanation I can come up with for these meetings is that they're sort of like the adult military version of an IEP meeting-- representatives from each of the areas of a soldier's care get together with the soldier (and his or her family, if relevant) to touch base with each other, discuss where the soldier is now, set goals for the future, and determine how best to get to those goals.  I'd direct you to a neat explanation of this process on the Warrior Transition Battalion website but I can't find one (this is the best I could come up with), which is probably why they're making the video in the first place.  That would make sense.

The film crew is moving on to film some other families at a couple of other locations around the country, and then they've got to edit all that stuff and put it together, so don't expect the video out any time soon.  And it may be pretty dry viewing, as it is a training video.  And also we probably won't play a prominent role in it.  But I'll let you all know when it's released, as several of you have asked.  Just expect a performance (at least on our part) less of the Academy Award-winning caliber and more of the Razzie Award variety.

Anyway, Connor and I arrived sort of at the last minute because we couldn't find our car keys-- they'd been misplaced in the whirlwind of outside filming the day before.  I eventually found them in the garage, sitting on a large pile of wood for the deck we've been in the process of staining.  This was not exactly the first place I thought to look, so it took a while to locate them.  Then the meeting was upstairs, so the key to the stair lift had to be located so that we didn't have to use the alternate method of getting Connor up the stairs-- the BBG (Big Burly Guy) method.  But we managed to squeak in just before filming started.

After we were finished (Jeremy still had filming to do at the gym, but Connor and I got to leave after the meeting was over) the little guy and I headed straight over to occupational therapy, where Connor spent the first half of the session with a huge pouty face on.  It was hilarious-- he wanted to play with his toys, and he was obviously having a good time, but he was still put out about the events of the past two days so he was trying his very best to look like he was miserable.  So basically he'd play with his toys, and every once in a while you'd see a smile creeping up onto his face, but then he'd glance up, see me, and immediately the pouty look would reappear.  He couldn't keep up the charade any more after we pulled out the big guns-- a swing!  That kid loves swings.  So he lightened up and we got to hear a few of those delicious giggles. 

The lack of smiles might also be because the kid's feeling pretty tired right now.  We started his new seizure medication on Tuesday-- it's a drug called Lamictal-- and we haven't begun stepping back any of his other medications.  The side effects in these situations tend to be cumulative, and all three seizure medications he's now on can cause fatigue.  So Connor actually took a two hour nap today, which is all but unheard of in our household now.  I took a nap too-- the last couple of days have been surprisingly tiring. 

I don't think I'm cut out for a film career.

~Jessie

In Which We Spend The Day On Camera

Well today was kind of surreal.

A week or two ago Jeremy sort of casually mentioned that the Warrior Transition Battalion with the army was making a training video about the process that wounded soldiers go through and would like to interview our family for it some time in the future.  We aren't normally comfortable with the idea of television interviews.  However since this was for the army and not the general public (though it will be on the WTB website eventually so I suppose the general public will have access to it), would be part of a bigger project not focused specifically on our family, and wasn't a mainstream media source, we decided after some discussion that we'd agree to do it.

And then later that week he let me know that they wanted to shoot a little bit of footage at our house.  I told him that would be okay, as long as he gave me some sort of advance notice so that I'd be able to get everything cleaned up.  In Jeremy's world, "advance notice" apparently means "48 hours," because he casually mentioned to me on Monday that they'd be coming today.  Keep in mind that I'd been gone for the whole weekend, and so the normal housekeeping I do then didn't happen, and also I was playing catch-up on all the things I'd gotten behind on during Connor's huge seizure crisis of the last couple weeks.  So I was a little frazzled, but since I thought the interview was going to be starting fairly late in the morning I figured I could still get things cleaned up in a reasonable fashion between Tuesday night and this morning.  Of course Tuesday evening he informs me that I have the time wrong, and they're actually planning on being here at 8:00am.

My reaction was not pretty.

So I got up at an obscenely early hour and cleaned the living room, kitchen and library area, which were the most likely places they'd be filming.  Then I hopped in the shower at the last minute and cleaned up just in time for the cars to start arriving.  I sort of expected this to be a fairly low-key affair, with maybe an interviewer and a camera man, and that we'd sit down and talk and then they'd edit out all the times we said "um" or forgot the question or something.  So I was a little bit thrown when Jeremy answered the door and there were twice that many people standing on our porch, who all introduced themselves and then promptly began hauling in a large amount of extremely sophisticated looking equipment (and apparently they were traveling light-- I have no idea how much equipment they normally carry, but I'm not sure it would have fit in my house).  They were all extremely nice, they all knew exactly what they were doing, and pretty soon our house was covered in lights on stands, this huge camera was set up, the sound guy was getting out his boom microphone and it was clearly evident that Jeremy and I had slightly underestimated the scale of this project.

It took almost an hour to set up the first (yes, the first) set for shooting-- this one in the living room for our individual interviews-- and the process involved rearranging a good portion of our furniture and a futile search of our house for an appropriate lamp to add to the set as background ambiance.  Apparently all of our lamps were either too short or too tall, and a lamp in the background was essential for shooting the scene-- something about softening up the stone background of our fireplace-- and that's how I found myself ringing the doorbell over at our neighbor's house with the producer and cinematographer both in tow to ask if I could borrow a medium size table lamp and also a potted plant.

See why today was kind of surreal?

So anyway, once the decided-upon lamp and potted plant were arranged and crisis was averted they made Jeremy wear makeup, which I thought was pretty hilarious.  I didn't actually get to see the application process though because I was in the back room trying to keep Connor quiet while Jer's interview was filmed.  Then it was my turn, and I guess I shouldn't have laughed at Jeremy.  As a result I had to change clothes twice because my outfit blended into the background too much, and then my hair decided to demonstrate how static electricity works and was all over the place so it ended up cemented to my head, and after that I needed more makeup applied and then my hair started going crazy again and then the pizza guy rang the doorbell in the middle of the shoot.  Based on how my interview went I suspect I may end up being related to (the aptly named) "Sir Not Appearing In This Film."

Anyway, after we were done in the living room they filmed Jeremy and I together in our kitchen drinking "coffee" (i.e. water in coffee cups) and discussing army meetings and classes and whatnot very seriously.  Or at least it started out seriously, but degraded after about seven or eight takes ruined by how we kept drinking out of our cups simultaneously.  Then we started making smart aleck comments to each other, because we can only restrain our natural sarcasm for so long, and Jeremy began doing that nervous habit where he stands on one foot and bangs the other against something, in this case the cabinets, and I kicked him in the shins.  I really feel for whoever ends up having to edit our footage.

The camera crew would have been perfectly justified in packing up and leaving after that as Jeremy and I were rapidly degrading as far as maturity level goes, but instead we did a shot in the kitchen (Jeremy and Connor in wheelchairs and me reading Fifteen Animals to Connor and thus signing "Bob" about eight billion times).  Then we moved back into the living room, where Jeremy and I sat on the couch with Connor and attempted to interest him in a book, but instead the little guy just spent the entire time staring directly at the lights and signing "Light!  Light!" over and over again.  I'm pretty sure he meant something like "Hey guys!  Why are you trying to make me look at this stupid book when there are all these people and giant lights and weird pieces of equipment in our house?  Don't you all notice anything?"  He had a point.

So after that I figured we would be done.  Wrong.  We were just done with the shots inside the house.

Twenty minutes later we found ourselves walking up and down the sidewalk in our neighborhood with the crew filming and all of our neighbors driving by trying to figure out what the heck was going on.  After that they made Jeremy don his bike gear (complete with the Bubble Butt Pants) and he was filmed putting on his helmet a few times, and then getting on his bike a few more times, and then riding up and down the street for about thirty minutes, with a short intermission to track down Loki, who had escaped the house and was found crouched underneath our cypress tree, and Cricket, who was thought to have escaped but was found curled up asleep on our bed. 

The crew packed up and left at about 3:30 in the afternoon.  Tomorrow morning we'll head down to post, where they're filming some more.  This training video stuff is hard work. 

In conclusion, that was without a doubt one of the weirdest days I've had so far this year.  Don't get me wrong; everyone was extremely nice and professional, they put my house back together pretty much how it was when they arrived, and they fed us pizza to boot so it certainly wasn't weird in a bad way.

But still.  Weird.

~Jess

In Which I Think About The Past Year

This time last year, I was writing about how well Connor was growing, cleaning our house, and how the little guy was taking to his new tricycle.  I had no idea last year on this day that in less than twenty-four hours my life would be completely turned on its head.

Tomorrow marks one year to the day since Jeremy's Stryker hit an IED in Afghanistan.

I knew of course when Jeremy deployed that there was a risk he would be severely injured or wouldn't make it home.  But he had only been gone two months out of a twelve month deployment, and I certainly didn't have any premonitions when I woke up on August 10th a year ago that it would be the last day of normalcy in my world for a long, long time.

But then I don't really do premonitions, because I had absolutely no idea anything was different about my pregnancy either, up until the fourth month when high levels on a blood test sent us down a path that ultimately revealed the child we would be having was a very different child from the one I'd been picturing in my head.

Isn't that the way life is, though?  I've gotten to the point where I don't try to speculate any more on what I'll be doing in a year, or two years, or ten years down the road.  If you'd asked me as an eighteen year old what I'd be doing now I would have told you something about finishing up my PhD and embarking on a career as a college English professor.  If you'd asked me last year, I would have told you that I'd be newly reunited with my husband after his year of deployment, and we'd probably be enjoying a brief vacation before he was off to six months worth of training at a post we would be unable to accompany him to. 

The thought that we'd be doing what we're doing today instead was nowhere on my radar.  And while quite frankly a whole lot of the past year was really truly horrific, some wonderful, awesome, also-unexpected things also happened.  Like watching my unbelievably determined, driven, amazing husband get back on his feet for the first time.  And experiencing the incredible generosity and selfless kindness of literally hundreds of people we would otherwise never have met.  And getting the chance to start down the road to adoption years earlier than we'd expected.  Pretty wonderful stuff-- and none of it anything I'd ever dreamed about doing.

I'm hoping that this time next year we'll be gearing up for our journey to Thailand in order to bring home our new daughter, that Jeremy will be firmly ensconced in training for his new job in the military, and that Connor will be his usual happy, excited self with some more great accomplishments under his belt.  But I'm not going to bet on it, because frankly my track record as far as predictions go hasn't been so hot.  I suggest not hiring me to do your horoscope. 

Wherever we are on this day next year-- whether or not it's where we expected to end up-- I'm sure it will be some place worth going.

~Jess

In Which Jeremy Brews Up Trouble, Or Coffee Or Something, And Also I Want A Trained Squirrel

Remember that post I did about Jeremy needing a new coffee machine because his old one broke due to being shipped back from Afghanistan in a cardboard box with no padding?  Me neither.  This is because I blogged about it way, waaaaaaay back in April, and I neglected to research the company I ordered it from.  Turns out this was a bad idea, because they kept claiming it was back ordered and then extending the date it was back ordered to until finally a couple of weeks ago I just canceled our order and got it from someone else.  Anyway, it finally came! 

It's the Rancilo Silvia**, which is apparently some sort of awesome machine but I can't tell you why because I don't know anything about coffee, and when I ask Jer to explain it he always pulls out all of these fancy words, like "first crack" and "pyrolysis" and "chaff," and so I don't know what he's talking about.  Except maybe for that last one, which is what I think happens when your underwear gets pulled all out of whack.  Oh, wait-- that's "chafe." 

Um, anyway I just kind of start tuning him out after a little while and so I haven't actually learned anything about making good coffee, other than the fact that if you roast coffee beans in the house you set off the fire alarm and have to stand up on a chair to take out the batteries before it gives you permanent hearing loss.  I relearn that one about once a week.  Fun times.

So while I've learned all about the inner mechanism of our fire alarms, I haven't learned anything at all about operating the coffee pot, and believe me-- this thing looks like it would involve some sort of advanced degree to operate.  It's got a ton of buttons on the front, with mysterious pictographs that I have yet to decipher.  I'd read the directions, but they're probably in Italian.  Or French.  Or Frenalian or something.  Also I don't care enough about coffee to actually want to learn how to operate this machine, which is why we'll still holding on to the French press. 

We're keeping it because that way when we have guests who drink coffee and Jeremy is gone, I don't have to try and figure out what all the pictographs on the new machine mean.  After having spent four months making Jeremy coffee on the French press when he couldn't get into the kitchen to do it himself, I have totally got pushing that little plunger thing on the top of it down to an art form.  Except when I forget to set a timer and have to sort of guesstimate when the coffee is ready based on color, since I'm not going to taste it.  Also when I forget to heat the water.  It's not really my fault that my French press skills actually suck, though-- Jeremy gave me directions on how to work the press while on extremely large quantities of morphine.  But that's okay, because it gives me the chance to demonstrate my amazing drive-through coffee ordering skills.  I am awesome.

Anyway, Jeremy got this thing set up on the counter in the place of honor, and apparently it makes coffee that is greatly superior to the French press variety, or at least makes it with a lot more noise and button-pushing.  I'm glad that it's finally here, because it means that we can put our enormous drive-through coffee budget into something more productive.  I'm thinking we could use it buy a trained squirrel that could take the batteries out of fire alarms as needed.  Or maybe we could just keep the money and train the squirrel ourselves.  I wouldn't think it would be too hard-- all we'd have to do is fill the fire alarm batteries with birdseed. 

It would totally work.

~Jess


**Yes, we're choosing the American name for our future daughter partially based on the name of a coffee machine.  That was Jeremy's idea.  But I'm sure there are worse ways of picking a name.  Plus we spelled it differently.  We spelled it like the name of the poet who committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven.  That was my idea.

See?  Much better.

In Which Jeremy Walks Some More (Video)

It will be nine months tomorrow since Jeremy was injured in Afghanistan.  I can hardly believe it's been that long.  He's been able to bear weight on his feet for five months now, and look at the incredible progress he's made!  He's getting to the point where he's moving really well, and he's not having to use a cane any more at all.  I'm glad I've taken these videos, because you can see the incredible progress he's made.  Here he is in January:



And here he is today!



Pretty awesome, huh?

~Jess

In Which Everyone Has A Birthday, And I Get Jer A Present

April is like second Christmas around here. 

There are a ridiculous number of people in my family that have birthdays in April.  There are nine family members that have April birthdays, including Connor and Jeremy. 

I ordered Jeremy's birthday present today.  He already knows what it is as he picked it out, so I feel perfectly fine in sharing it with you.  He's getting a new espresso machine.  A really, really nice espresso machine.

I wasn't about to try and select one of these for him, as I know next to nothing about coffee and he's really particular about the equipment he uses.  Jeremy is just slightly into coffee, and when I say "just slightly," I mean that not only does he roast and grind his own beans (usually setting off the fire alarm in the process), but when he deployed he had his espresso machine shipped to Afghanistan and once a month I'd ship him unroasted beans so that he could continue to make high quality lattes in the middle of the desert. 

I'm sad to say that 120 degree temperatures do not do good things to espresso machines.  Nor does the Afghanistan sand, which the guys call "moon dust," that gets into anything and everything over there.  The last straw was when the poor, much-maligned espresso machine was shipped back from Afghanistan in a cardboard box with no padding.  As a result Jeremy now has to use a wrench to turn the steamer on, and I believe some portions of the machine itself are currently held together with duct tape. 

So I informed him a while back that he'd be getting a new espresso machine for his birthday, and he's spent the last few weeks doing research to figure out exactly what model he wanted.  The one he picked out is about one step below a commercial machine-- it is for serious coffee drinkers.  The good news is it will pay for itself after about six months of Jer making his own Venti Caramel Macchiatos.  It should come in a week or so and he's pretty excited about it.  I'm sure he'll be cranking it up straight out of the box.

Expect to hear more about fire alarms in the near future.

~Jess

Video: In Which Jeremy Walks With A Cane!

Before the video, I thought I'd give you a follow up on the gerbil debacle.  So Lili and I had a discussion earlier today (and if you don't think I would have a discussion with a gerbil you obviously haven't read a whole lot of this blog) and I am now mostly over the trauma of last night.  He was just doing what gerbils naturally do-- acting to prevent predators from finding the nest-- and while I'm not exactly used to seeing mini episodes of Planet Earth reenacted in my son's room, well, chalk this one up to a learning experience.  Of course gerbils are apparently also extremely territorial and will fight to the death if introduced to gerbils they weren't raised with, so Lili will have to be a solitary critter now.  I'll make an effort to keep him from being bored.  In return he promises to not mistake any of my fingers for dead gerbils.

And for goodness sake of course he had enough food and water.  After that whole earlier fiasco I've been a wee bit paranoid about that.

Um, anyway, moving on.  Jeremy has been doing a whole lot of cycling recently-- he has a bike now and since the weather has been beautiful he's been spending several hours a day out on the trails.  Today he found a tiny little bike rental place at the head of one of the trails he's been exploring, and since we have respite care tomorrow we're going to rent a bike for me and go out riding!  Provided the weather cooperates, of course-- it's pretty temperamental this time of year. 

Because Jeremy's been doing so much riding (and other physical activity) his balance has improved and he's looking great!  I badgered him into doing another video for me tonight as an apology to you all for the horrors of yesterday's post (be very, very glad I didn't include a picture with said post, by the way).  So without further ado, here he is!


Compare that to the last two videos.  Pretty amazing, huh?

~Jess

In Which I Come Full Circle

Today I had a dentist appointment.  I was a little bit nervous about it, given what happened the last time I went to this particular dentist office.  But it's been over six months now (can you believe it?) so it was time to go back.  I really liked the people there and the office is very conveniently located, so I went to the same dentist despite my rather unsettling memories of the last time I was there.  I felt, to some extent, like I was getting back up on the horse that threw me.

They remembered me, of course.  I get the feeling they haven't had too many patients get that sort of life-changing phone call in the middle of an appointment.  I had the same dental tech, but she put me in a different room and did her best to put me at ease, which I was grateful for.  I think I would have been a lot more uncomfortable sitting in the same chair as last time.

The new room was across the hall from the old one and featured a heated, massaging dental chair.  Cushy!  I set my purse, with my phone in it, on the windowsill.  It was on, of course.  Phone etiquette goes out the window when you have a kid with seizures like the ones Connor has.

Luckily the only call I had was from a good friend, and I didn't even need to pick it up because I've programmed my phone to give her a special ringtone.  The dental tech visibly tensed when it went off, because we'd been half-heartedly joking about what might happen in this appointment, but she laughed at herself when I told her everything was okay.  The only slight snag was when they gave me a hot towel to wipe down with (told you this was a cushy place) and I realized only after thoroughly wiping my face and hands that the towel was lavender scented.  Connor, of course, is deathly allergic to lavender and carries an EpiPen for it.  I didn't tell the dentist about that beforehand, of course, so it wasn't their fault.  Oh well-- I just ended up having to rinse off when I got home before touching the little guy or anything he might come into contact with.  But it was no big deal other than that things went without a hitch. 

So no cavities again for me-- which honestly I was a little surprised by given the sheer amount of chocolate therapy I've indulged in during the last six months-- and I've got some shiny, sparkly pearly whites.  Honestly it was a little weird and unsettling being back in that building with the same people who were there when I got the news, but I'm glad I went back.  I'll see them again in another six months.  No problem!

Though I think I'll stick to the room across the hall for now.

~Jess

In Which Jeremy Walks Without Crutches!

I thought you guys might want to see the incredible progress that Jeremy's been making!  So I forced him to do another video for you all.  Aren't I sweet? 

Here he is back on January 6th, for your comparison.  It's been almost exactly a month since I took that video, and the difference is astonishing.  He's been working extremely hard to rebuild muscle and improve his flexibility and balance; he's spending three to four hours at the gym six days out of the week and going to physical therapy three times a week on top of that. 

He's still uses the wheelchair whenever we'll be out and about for more than half an hour or so, or when there's uneven terrain or bad weather, but I wouldn't be surprised if by next month he's out of the wheelchair entirely given the rate he's going!

~Jess

In Which Jer Proves His Sainthood

Tonight Jer and I went out on a date to see A Prairie Home Companion broadcast live in one of our local movie theaters! 

For those of you who don't know about A Prairie Home Companion (and if you don't, shame on you!), it's a comedic variety radio show that's been on the air in one form or the other since 1974, and its heart and soul is a man named Garrison Keillor.  The man is a incredible sort of English major Jack of All Trades, a tireless promoter of the English language in general, and one of my personal idols.

Jeremy taking me to see the show?  That's proof right there that the man really, really loves me-- though I could have told you that already, of course.  It was raining and nasty outside.  He doesn't really like folk music or gospel music.  The man mostly listens to 80's heavy metal.  He could care less about the news from Lake Wobegon (even if the children are all above average), and yet he not only willingly went with me to sit in a dark theater for two hours to listen to all of the above, he actually encouraged me to buy the tickets, and he went without a single complaint. 

Major brownie points earned, right there. 

He's getting around much, much better these days-- spending as much time as possible up on the crutches.  I'll have to take another video so that you can see the drastic improvement!  He's still having some issues with swelling and he's still in the wheelchair most of the time, but he's really making some major progress.  We can often be found together in the mornings in cycling class, and while he has to lean on the handlebars quite a bit he's able to stand up on the pedals!  The next big step will be to transition to crutches full time, and from there he'll be going to a cane.  I think it's a big relief for him to actually be able to do something; he likes to keep busy and it was pretty hard for him to be off his feet for so long.  Can you believe that on February 11th it'll have been six months since I got that horrible phone call?  It just doesn't seem possible.

I bet he'll be using a cane by the time I drag him to the live production of A Prairie Home Companion when it comes here in March!

~Jess

Ask Jer: In Which You Never Eat Corn Flakes Again

Jeremy's post: Round 2.

"Have you played Valkyrie Profile yet? How is it?"

Sorry, I haven't played it yet. It is on my to-do list.

"Do you miss your old roomie Wilcox? Why did Stephen never date in college? Was he not good enough for the girls or the girls weren't good enough for him?"

Yes, although I don't think he and I were ever ol' ladies (roommates for non-Aggies).

I could be wrong, but I don't think Steven ever talked to girls at A&M, except for the girls in the band with us.

"for both of you where r the medical mondays?"

Loki ate them. Fear not, I plan to beat them out of him. (***It's me, Jess, interjecting, as this question is for both of us. Medical Mondays will resume as soon as I can reach my file cabinet with all my medical research in it again. Right now it is in the office, which is wall-to-wall boxes.***)

"Do you and Connor have races in your wheelchairs? I bet he kicks your a**."

Yes. On level, beveled, and uphill gradients Connor has a distinct advantage since he actually receives locomotion via mommy power. On a downhill I have recklessness on my side which allows me to achieve speeds at which mommy power cringes in horror and cars must swerve wildly to avoid me.

"If your remote control could be hooked up to only one thing in the whole world, what would you choose?"

Rowbert. If I could control Rowbert via remote I could use him in place of a large predatory animal and begin my crusade against stupid people. In his current form his attacks would be limited to things like, "Run Over", "Door Surprise Attack", or "Ankle Snapping Ramp Attack". With some Road Warriorish modifications (warriorish is now wordified) I'm sure Rowbert would be the bane of stupidites everywhere.

"What happened to your hedgehog?"

At first, I had no clue what you were talking about. Now I seem to remember having a stuffed hedgehog animal in college. I have no idea why I had such an animal or where it came from. I have absolutely no clue as to its current whereabouts. If it absorbed my passive aggressive violent side it is probably running amok.

"Was Afghanistan what you expected? If you were given the 'all clear' health wise, do you feel like you'd WANT to go back?

Given current circumstances, what are you hoping will be your next career steps?"

Yep. I expected a mountainous desert with landmines everywhere and a people whose culture is vastly different from ours and Afghanistan delivered. The Army is reasonably good at preparing units for the area they will deploy to. We received language and culture classes in preparation for our deployment.

If I were given the all clear health wise I would want to go back and I would be obligated to go back. My current unit is still there. However, the point is moot since I won't be given the all clear anytime soon.

Ideally, I will be able to remain in the Army. The military has started keeping more wounded Soldiers, including some amputees. I don't know a lot about options for continued service since this is my first time losing at minesweeper.

"What's your favorite way to spend time with Connor?"

Much of Connor's therapy could be considered play, since play is what children do. I enjoy trying to get Connor to explore new toys or play with his old toys in new ways. For instance, putting him into a sitting position and placing a toy just barely within his reach so he has to work to play with it.

"Will you be acquiring Diablo III, upon its release?"

Of course. Although I am more excited about Starcraft 2. Starcraft's plot was phenomenal in my opinion.

"....Ender's Game series by any chance?" (in reference to my answer in the last q&a I did about what books I read)

Yes. The sequels were decidedly not military sci-fi unfortunately. The parallel series about Bean was decent. At this point, however, they read like young adult novels to me. Jessie has just informed me that they are kinda sorta young adult novels.

"Do you have the Little Rabbit Foo Foo book (the one by Michael Rosen)?"

Nope. If I did I would definitely predatorize the heck out of it. Connor must understand that rabbits are an important food source for wolves, bears, and tyrannosaurus rex.

"Why not T Rex driving tanks?"

Unfortunately a T Rex is unusually large. We would have to design a really big tank for it to drive. We have plenty of people sized tanks that we could immediately man with velociraptors. It might be better to simply label a T Rex as a bipedal tank. Then we could call it TankRex.

"I usually read fantasy, but I'm discovering old Larry Niven and Heinlein and such. What are your favorite books?"

I definitely enjoyed Niven and Heinlein. A couple of books I have enjoyed are Armor by Steakly and The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle. Pournelle supposedly has some good stuff. Let me get back to you later on this. I'm currently in a heavy sci-fi phase and am reading a lot of new material.

"what is walking like for him? what hurts the most and what is the most difficult part about it? in the end, is he supposed to have pretty much all functionality back? i remember Jessie mentioning something about not being able to move the foot sideways... will that remain?"

Walking is a fairly painful process at this point. I am able to use it for short bursts with crutches and even shorter bursts completely unassisted. There is a bit of general pain in the heel area and some sharper pains in the mid foot. The heel pain is probably directly related to the trauma and degradation of the fat pad. The mid foot pain is probably occurring because many of the mid foot joints have extremely limited mobility at the moment.

The recovery process has introduced me to the most painful experiences of my life unfortunately.

Currently, breaking up scar tissue is the most significant pain. This involves a licensed medical massage therapist putting deep, manual, pressure on the left calf wound area and the trauma scars on the undersides of my feet. When we started this process it involved me screaming and cursing into a pillow while hitting things and trying to climb the futon to get away. The scars have softened up and I usually only growl a little now.

Prior to that, the removal of the pins in my feet was amazingly painful. Pins are small metal wires that are pushed through connective tissues like ligaments and then driven into the underlying bone. This makes sure that ligaments and tendons heal correctly to the bone. Sometimes they came out with minor pain. Other times they had to get a pair of medical pliers (look just like regular pliers) to get them out. If pliers were needed it meant screaming and a few tears.

Removal of the sutures and staples wasn't too bad. It took a while to get them all. My feet and legs were still very sensitive at that time and this probably amplified the pain a bit.

I remember very briefly waking up as I was put back into my bed post surgery. My heels hurt a lot but I was very drugged up. I remember screaming a bit and begging for more morphine. Considering that my heels had just been cut up, drilled into, and probably hammered on with medical tools I am extremely happy that I was still very drugged up from anesthesia.

If you like corn flakes you need to stop reading right now.

Amazingly, the actual trauma hurt very little. Mostly I just had a very odd sensation in my feet and a feeling of lethargy. Imagine a bowl just slightly larger in diameter than your fist. Fill the bowl with corn flakes. Do not add any milk. Make a fist and rest it on top of the corn flakes. Now, with a quick and firm movement, push your fist down into the corn flakes. You probably feel lots of cracking and individual pieces grating against other pieces. Maybe you feel a few sharp pieces cutting into the soft tissue on your fist. That's what my feet felt like to walk on. Surprisingly little pain was involved. Just lots of crunchy.

If you like corn flakes you can start reading again. If you no longer like corn flakes, sorry.

The history of recovery from this type of injury is varied. Due to the pain involved with rehabilitation, many people stop therapy early or don't try at all. I am willing to tolerate pretty substantial amounts of pain though so the outlook is good. I am walking early for wounds this severe. More importantly, none of the foot joints are slipping which is great. Instability from joints slipping would have meant more surgeries to include possible amputation. Overall I would say the prognosis is quite good.

The left foot cannot make a full recovery due to the fusion of the calcaneus (heel bone) and the talus (ankle bone). My physical therapists report that with this fusion I will lose the ability to move my heel left and right. I do have the ability to move my fore foot and mid foot. At this point I suspect that this will only impact my ability to make rapid direction changes and possibly my ability to run. I might have a little bit of difficulty balancing on a beveled surface as well.

That's all I'm tracking for questions, so unless you ask more questions I will never blog again.

Out.

In Which We Have Another Fantastic Day

We had such a great day today!

This morning Jeremy not only got back up onto his crutches, but he did an entire lap around the indoor track at the YMCA! The track is a sixth of a mile long, so it's quite an accomplishment, especially after getting up on the crutches for the first time only yesterday! The track was pretty crowded and we were really, really slow (it took about 35 minutes to make that lap). At first people simply ran around us without a word, but as we got closer to the finish line more and more people started slowing down and offering encouragement as they ran by. When we went by the balcony that overlooks the basketball court a guy down there started cheering for Jer and pumping his fist in the air. It was pretty cool.

I have to admit, I teared up a bit when Jeremy reached the finish line. It's been five long, long months, but he's back on his feet at last.

Of course we still have a long way to go-- right now Jer can get from the chair to the crutches, but not from the floor to the crutches as he has to build that muscle strength back up, so he needs a spotter right now as he wouldn't be able to get back up if he fell down. Also it hurts quite a bit to walk, as all of the scar tissue is stretching and his feet aren't used to taking the weight any more. And of course, perfectly level ground is needed right now as he has to get used a new way of balancing-- his left ankle doesn't swivel back and forth and more, so that means that he has to balance from his hips. But I have no doubt that he'll be switching to a cane in no time and who knows where he'll go from there?

And while that was already enough to make the day a fantastic one, it just got better from there! We met with Pam, Becky and Rhonda over at the new house to talk about things to come in the next few weeks. While we were there, the tilers were just finishing up the bathroom floors (they did both bathrooms in one day-- talk about hard workers!) and they look absolutely beautiful; I'll have to take some pictures to share with you when I get the chance. We talked about window treatments, furniture, the kitchen and master bathroom counter tops, lighting, and the faux painting that will be done on the oven hood and the ceiling of Connor's room! I swear every time I go over there it's like walking into a secret garden. I'm not watching a house being remodeled; I'm watching it bloom. Every week some new gorgeous detail unfolds, and I never know what I'm going to see when I walk through the door.

I can't wait to share it with you!

In Which Jer WALKS!

I don't have anything to add to this video.




I think it speaks for itself!

~Jess

In Which We Have a Day of Highs and Lows

This afternoon Jeremy, Connor and I drove up to the hospital where they did his surgeries for his big follow-up appointment. They took some x-rays and said that everything looks like it's doing well. Then they gave us some great news; Jer can start doing some weight bearing activities! They'd like him to start out in the pool. Once he's comfortable there and the doctors think he is ready he can move to the parallel bars, and from there he'll be able to move to crutches. Jeremy is fired up about getting in the pool-- I think it's going to be his new hobby. He used to run marathons, but those are sort of out now, so he's talking about taking up swimming as his cardiovascular activity of choice. All the pools he'd be using this time of year are indoors, so it's fine with me. Maybe Connor and I will join him sometimes! While it'll still probably be a good while before Jer is able to walk again, we're taking the next step towards him being back on his feet. That's a really exciting thing!

So we were totally stoked about this news, and while on the way home we decided to stop by our favorite sushi place in Puyallup to pick up some dinner as a treat. I left Jer and Connor out in the car and went in to get our food. I brought our yummy-smelling box back to the car, handed it to Jer, and was setting my purse in the front seat when Connor abruptly went very quiet and slumped over in his wheelchair. He was having another seizure.

This was one of the ones that we're used to seeing with him, in which he stops breathing and turns blue. I ran around the car, threw open the side door, unbuckled him and laid him down across the front seat. I only had to give him a couple of breaths before he started breathing again, though after I got him breathing the first time he stopped again a few seconds later and I had to give him a couple more. This seizure was really fast-- it maybe only lasted about half a minute or so, and the only trembling I saw was right after I'd gotten him to start breathing the first time-- his jaw quivered for a second and then he stopped breathing again and the motion stopped at the same time. He also showed no awareness at all, unlike the last two seizures when he was conscious and very obviously knew that something was going on (up until he stopped breathing, anyway).

While I'm glad that this seizure was a very short one and seemed to be about on par with his "usual" seizures, I am concerned about the fact that this one came only four days after the last one. We still haven't heard from the neurologist (don't get me started) so I'll be calling them again tomorrow morning and if I don't hear from them by Thursday I'll be making a trip down there. It's obvious that Connor's seizures are no longer controlled by his medication and it's imperative that we get this figured out as soon as possible. I'm sure they have a lot to do, and I know they are still within their "three business days" window to get back to me so according to the rules they haven't done anything wrong, but it's not like I'm calling about how Connor stubbed his toe or something. Maybe it's more of a priority in my mind than it is in theirs, as they probably have people calling in about seizures all the time, but I don't really care at the moment. I'm angry anyway. Oh well.

So all in all it was a roller coaster of a day. I have a plate of warm brownies, a good book, and a mug of hot cocoa sitting next to me right now though, so at least it's ending on a good note!

~Jess

In Which Jeremy Has A Busy Day

It was a very busy day today-- a variety of events and meetings kept us running around all over the place. Jeremy had his initial "what the heck are we going to do with you while you are healing" meeting, and we talked about a few different options, including him taking some online classes in the pursuit of a post baccalaureate degree or possibly working at the Warrior Transition Unit.

For those of you not familiar with the Warrior Transition Unit (WTU), let me give you a brief explanation. When a soldier is injured and they can no longer perform their assigned duties, they are assigned to the WTU in order to focus on the recovery process until they are healed, at which time they either go back to their original job, transfer to a new job, or are medically retired with a severance package. They would give Jer a temporary job that he would be able to perform in his current condition. Now that we have an idea of some of the options Jeremy has, he'll do some research and make a decision as to what he thinks the best path is going to be for the next few months. I think right now he's leaning towards doing some additional schooling; we'll just have to see.

This evening we went to a meeting for the families of the deployed soldiers in Jer's unit. One of Jeremy's commanding officers was back here on leave and gave the spouses a chance to ask questions and hear about how their soldiers are doing. At the meeting, Jeremy was awarded a Bronze Star for his actions in Afghanistan! He has already received a Purple Heart and an Army Commendation Medal with Valor for his time over there, so this was a pleasant surprise for him.

I am, as always, proud!

~Jess

In Which I Meet A Neighbor In A Novel Way

Short blog tonight, as I'm rather tired. Also the second half of this post contains photos of Jer's healing injuries, just to let you know. I'm warning you because people who are not fond of looking at feet should probably skip it. You know who you are. Moving on.

Today we finally got around to calling the locksmith to get the lock changed out on our new mailbox, which we had yet to do. Our mailbox is a community style box, so we'd called the mail carrier first to find out which one was ours. "It's #4," we were told.

So the locksmith came out and, after attempting to pick the lock on the box, drilled a hole in the old lock and popped the door open, whereupon we discovered that this was not, in fact our mailbox, but the neighbor's across the street. This was about the time said neighbor came out and wanted to know what the heck we were doing breaking into his mailbox.

Whoops.

So the locksmith popped the new lock on, I paid for it, gave the neighbor the new key (he was very gracious about the whole thing), and felt like a total idiot. Upon my asking Jer checked his notebook and confirmed that the mailman had indeed said "mailbox #4," so we figure that he probably meant the mailbox around the corner rather than the one on our street. We'll call on Monday to find out for sure, as we don't really want to take a chance and end up replacing another neighbor's lock. Fun times.

We spent the whole first half of the day at the new house; I worked outside while Jer and Connor hung out inside in Connor's future room (no that is NOT the updated paint job) with all of the fantastic volunteers who came out today. I've got some pictures I'll post tomorrow of them hard at work!

________________________________________________________________

Here, as promised, are the pictures of Jer's leg and feet. As you can see he looks pretty good!

And I'm off to bed!

~Jess

In Which I Update You All On Jer's Medical Status And Show You A Gratuitous Photo Of Our Cats

Our cats spend a whole lot of time pretending like they absolutely can't stand each other. Then every once in a while we find them like this.

They like to keep us guessing, I think. Crazy cats.

On a completely different topic: Jeremy's physical therapist came to the house again today. He pronounced Jer's right ankle rotation to be much improved, which is great! The man's been working hard at his rotation exercises.

Here's an update on how he's doing:

He's starting to get a little bit of feeling back in the graft site along the bottom edge. He describes it as sort of a "springy" sensation. His feet and ankles have complete feeling except for a couple of "dead" spots on his left foot. He can make pretty decent ovals (he's getting slowly closer to circles) with the right ankle, and while the left ankle will never make full circles again he can move it up and down. His toes have regained full flexibility on the right side, and on the left they continue to slowly improve, though the big toe remains relatively stiff.

The holes left from the wires are all scabbed over and are healing well, and all of his incision sites have fully closed and look great! He lost a good bit of the fat pad off his left foot, so he may have some difficulty standing on hard surfaces with that side, but the right one is a little more intact. He has mostly new skin now on his feet and the graft site has filled in-- it's baby-soft, which is kind of funny-- and it's lost that lizardy look it had due to the perforations they'd made to stretch out the skin before they stapled it on.

He's had no trouble with his spine-- the fracture should be fully healed by now, so hopefully it won't ever cause him to have issues in the future. The oversensitive nerves in his feet are much improved, though that and the changes in circulation still cause him issues if he has his feet in a totally lowered position for more than a couple minutes. He's slowly building up a tolerance, though-- leaving his feet in a lowered position for longer and longer each day, so hopefully by the time he's cleared to weight bear again his feet will be able to handle the circulation changes.

Despite losing the outer calf muscle on the left leg, he's able to move that leg well. Hopefully there won't be too much of a difference as far as muscle strength goes as the inner calf muscle can compensate, but we won't know until he's weight bearing again if that's the case.

He's slowly working down off the heavy pain medication, and overall his pain is very well-managed. He's having to take very little break-through medication, though we've been told to expect that to change once he begins more intensive therapy.

Several of you have asked for pictures of Jer's injuries, and while he has his boots on right now I'll take some pictures tomorrow when he's got them off for therapy. They really look much better than you'd think-- his feet aren't that swollen any more, and while the scarring is impressive, his donor graft site is still an angry red, and his calf muscle has an interesting contour to it now, otherwise things look surprisingly good.

He has an appointment in the first week of December with the orthopedic surgeon, and we're hoping at that time they'll clear him to begin some weight bearing activities. He'll probably start with weight bearing exercises in a swimming pool and they'll work up from there. By then he'll have been totally non-weight bearing for nearly four months. It's still possible that they'll tell him he needs to continue to stay off one (probably the left) or both of his feet for up to two more months, but he seems to be healing up really well so with any luck they'll clear him to start learning to walk again.

I'll keep you all posted!

~Jess