In Which Connor Sleeps In And We Acknowledge A Weird Anniversary

So today Connor slept in until almost two in the afternoon, which was kind of crazy.  I think this must have been one of his "catching up on sleep" days.  So we spent pretty much the whole day at the house.  I intended to try and get caught up on all of the housework that I've neglected while Connor hasn't been feeling well, but instead I mostly napped.  I kind of need to catch up on sleep too!

Otherwise I mostly spent the day making phone calls, setting up appointments, and making sure Connor has all of his paperwork for school ready.  Before I had Connor, I had absolutely no idea just how much time this sort of thing would take up-- updating his emergency files, keeping up with insurance referrals and making sure his prescriptions stay up to date is a full time job in itself.  I'm glad that I'm able to stay home and manage Connor's care; I think it would be pretty difficult to try and juggle working and taking care of the little guy, though I know a lot of families do it.

In other news, I was so frazzled by all the craziness going on last week that Jer and I completely forgot that August 11th was the two year anniversary of him getting blown up.  It's not like we celebrate the day or anything (think they make a Hallmark card for that-- Congratulations On Your Near-Death Experience or some such?) but I do think it's important to acknowledge it as a life-changing event.  Jeremy is doing extraordinarily well, I'm happy to say, and after a lot of hard work he's improved far beyond the doctors' prediction of what kind of function he might be likely to end up with.  Though he still walks with a noticeable limp, has difficulty on uneven terrain and after a busy day on his feet ends up with quite a bit of pain, he is able to do pretty much anything he sets his mind to-- even running, though he doesn't do that very often as it's not great for his feet.  He uses weightlifting to keep his body in tip-top shape so that his leg muscles are as strong as possible and he's not carrying around a lot of dead weight, so to speak, that would put more pressure on his feet.  This means that right now he looks a whole heck of a lot like a blue-eyed Vin Diesel. 

I don't really mind.  At all.

So the recovery process for him is over-- he's probably not going to continue to improve much after this, and his functionality is probably at its peak right now.  But hopefully a decade or two down the line technology and medical science will have improved enough that he'll have some good options when it comes to looking at replacement parts.

Maybe he can have robot feet. 

~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 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 Connor Breaks Down

This morning Connor was supposed to have his field day with school, but when we showed up we discovered it had been (mostly) canceled.  So we drove to Pike Place Market instead and did a little bit of shopping.  After Connor had his nap, I did a little more cleaning around the house in preparation for our friends coming in town to stay with us, which is when I made a big mistake.

See, we had this suitcase sitting in one of our closets that didn't really need to be in there.  And so I decided to move it to another part of the house, and not thinking about it at all I rolled it past Connor. 

He went ballistic.

He must have cried for about three hours.  And we're talking full-on, screaming melt-down here; he hit notes I wasn't even aware were in his range.  "No bye bye NO BYE BYE" he signed frantically over and over.  And then he demanded Jeremy, who was unfortunately in class, and when Jeremy didn't immediately appear he would break down again and sob like his little heart was breaking.

Sometimes I forget just how traumatic the events of the last year have probably been for Connor.  He's so laid-back and happy most of the time that it's easy to downplay how unhappy and scared all of the changes made him.  It's also easy to think that he doesn't really understand what happened, so it shouldn't have affected him as much.

But that suitcase triggered something-- I'm not sure if it was a fear that Daddy was leaving again or maybe that we were moving again-- and he absolutely lost it.  I held him in my lap and rocked him and sang to him, and I finally got him relatively calmed down, and then of course I had to strap him in his wheelchair because it was time to drive to the airport to pick our friends up and he completely broke down again.  He finally calmed down in the car, when it was evident that I was not, in fact, leaving him and by the time we got there he was almost cheery. 

But it's a wake up call to me that even though Connor seems to be pretty even-keeled, he was obviously deeply affected by the events of the past year and I need to be more sensitive to that.  Just because he doesn't always have the language to tell me what he's feeling, it doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't thinking about what happened and processing it in his own way. 

I'll know better next time.

~Jess

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

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 All Is Not Sweetness And Light Around Here

Poor Connor.  This morning when Jeremy left the house, Connor burst into tears and cried so hard he threw up.  He threw up again in the car all over his jacket and his hearing aids and then had a total, sobbing meltdown today at school-- an unheard of occurence.  He's really anxious right now.  I'm sure today's continued packing didn't help any, despite our reassurances that Jeremy wasn't leaving and we were packing because we're all moving to the new house together.  We'll just keep repeating the message and hoping that eventually it will sink in and he'll relax a little bit. 

Guess who else isn't happy? 

That's right.  The cats are freaking out.  Loki reacts to all the changes by becoming super affectionate and extremely enthusiastic about everything-- following me from room to room and bouncing around my ankles while I'm attempting to move things.  Packing is kind of hazardous while he's around because not only does he want to jump in every box, but he also tends to ram his head against the back of my legs right as I am lifting something.  Usually something fragile.

Cricket, on the other hand, is not reacting by being enthusiastically affectionate.  She's reacting by becoming extremely crabby with anyone and everyone.  She growls at Loki.  She growls at the cars driving by outside the window.  She growls at the boxes.  She's been spending a whole lot of time up in the cat tower in the corner of the room where she can see everything, because then there's no chance that Loki or one of the evil cars or boxes could sneak up on her.  She's also shedding like crazy all over everything. 

Of course Loki has been repeatedly attempting to administer his own brand of affectionate reassurance to Cricket.  Here he is trying to get her to let him cuddle, which ended tragically shortly after I took the picture.  This has provided our entertainment while we are taking breaks from packing.

So basically we've got Eeyore, Tigger, and what quite possibly might be the Heffalump all living in our household right now, and this apartment isn't nearly the size of the Hundred Acre Wood. 

Can't wait until we're settled!

~Jess

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 Talk About Something Other Than The House

I got so involved in my ramp planning yesterday (Now I'm thinking about living wall panels-- wouldn't that be cool on the side of a ramp wall? Totally impractical and hard to maintain, so I probably wouldn't actually do it, but very cool.) that I forgot to give you the update on Jer! Sorry about that.

There's Jeremy hanging out with our son, No-Pants boy, yesterday morning. Connor will wear a shirt to bed but he draws the line at pants. He's signing "Daddy" in this picture-- isn't he cute?

So Jer went in for a hearing test yesterday, because he's been having some trouble with loud sounds setting off a "static" sort of noise in his ear; it's rather uncomfortable and certainly distracting. They tested his hearing and he doesn't have any hearing loss, which is good. Basically they said that it's likely the concussion wave from the blast injured his middle ear and there's not really anything they can do to fix the problem, but it should get better over time. In the meantime I'm going to have to figure out how to moderate my voice a little better-- I tend to get really loud when I'm excited about a topic, and with the whole house buying thing I've been excited a lot recently, so now I get "shushed" a whole bunch. Oh well.

Jer also went down to the casting room, where they removed a staple in his graft that had been accidentally left in and also pulled out the wire sticking out of the top of his foot. This was the wire holding the navicular bone in place while it healed, and it's been a little over two months since it was put in. It stuck out about 3/4 in out of the surface of his foot, and was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. He was having a difficult time doing all of his physical therapy exercises because the wire went through either a muscle or tendon involved with the movement of his big toe, so it made his range-of-motion exercises kind of painful. Also whenever he had his air cast on the cast was essentially sitting on the wire and pressing it down into his foot. Ow.

Jeremy was a little bit nervous about them taking the wire out, and I can't say that I blame him. They don't use any anesthesia or anything, and while they tell you it won't hurt at all the fact that they're pulling 3 in long wire out of a bone in your foot makes you tend to think they're lying. Additionally exciting was the fact that it was a resident who obviously hadn't done this before taking it out of Jer's foot, so we got to hear the instructions. "You just twist it around like a corkscrew and yank it out," the orthopedic surgeon told him. Whee.

But as it turns out, it really doesn't hurt-- the guy took a hold of the wire, twisted it around for a second, and then pulled it out, and Jer didn't feel a thing. Weird. He now has a band aid over a rather large hole in his foot, and he's much more comfortable both moving his toe and wearing the cast. He's also a little less anxious about getting all the wires sticking out of the sides of his feet pulled, which they'll be doing on Wednesday. I think he's rather looking forward to it-- those all push against the cast too.

Jer can feel sensation just about everywhere except for a couple spots on the side and top of his left foot and his graft area, where the skin is totally numb. This is great because it means that for the most part the nerves are all working correctly! I was under the impression that he'd get sensation back in the graft area eventually, but Jer's PT said it was likely he never will feel anything there again because he lost so much tissue and the graft is so large.

We'll just have to see; the body is a pretty amazing thing!

~Jess

In Which Miracles Happen

I'm at a loss for words, which those of you who know me personally rather than just online can attest doesn't happen very often.

Every time we've been on the verge of collapse, every time our situation seems impossible, someone has stepped in and helped us get back on our feet.

I have been overwhelmed time and time again by the amazing, selfless generosity of those around us who have given so much support physically and emotionally to our family over the past month. Cards, letters, and e-mails full of prayers and well wishes arrive in droves each week. Today a number of people pitched in without us having to ask to provide us with help cleaning, with meals, and with keeping our spirits up. We also received some news so amazing I can't help but tear up while I'm typing.

Someone is gifting us with a wheelchair accessible van. We will go pick it out, and they will provide the means. They wish to remain anonymous, and have asked us to give our thanks not to them, but to God who continues to provide for us.

I have no words to express what that means to us.

Thank you.

Praise be to the Lord,
for he has heard my cry for mercy.
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
Psalm 28:6-7

~Jess

In Which We Come To Some Difficult Conclusions

Today was a rather frustrating day.

After spending the day in the apartment, we've come to a couple of conclusions. The first is that this apartment is not going to be a viable living space. Jeremy has access to basically two rooms and a portion of the bathroom. The only area he can turn the wheelchair around in is the living room, and the wheels don't get good traction at all in making the turns. He has to back down the hallway to get properly positioned for the bed. We've rented a storage unit and are going to be moving a good portion of the furniture into it tomorrow so that we'll have some more space cleared, but he still can't reach any sinks or toilets, can't even get into the kitchen, and can't open any of the doors.

It's been suggested that we move back on post where they have wheelchair accessible housing, and if we didn't have Connor that would be a good option. However, the whole reason we moved away from post to Puyallup in the first place was that we spent five months in negotiations with the on-post school district, who failed to provide anything remotely resembling an adequate education plan for the little guy. Homeschooling is not really something I need to add to my list of things to do right now, and neither is suing the school district, so if we can manage to stay in the Puyallup area that would be really nice. Basically moving on-post would be the best-case scenerio for Jeremy, and the worst-case scenerio for Connor. We've got to find a balance somewhere in between. I'm starting to look at rentals right now and hopefully we'll find something that, even if it isn't wheelchair accessible, is more livable than our apartment is now. Keep your fingers crossed that if we find something the apartment complex will let us break our lease.

The second conclusion we've come to is that we're just going to have to knuckle down and buy a wheelchair accessible van out-of-pocket. While we are applying for the VA grant to convert a vehicle, it's highly unlikely that we'll qualify for them or pretty much any other wounded soldier assistance program because Jeremy will not be in a wheelchair permanently, but (hopefully) just for a year, after which Connor would be the one needing the accessible van. We knew that we'd have to buy one someday when Connor was older and heavier-- we just didn't expect it to be now. But without a vehicle we are totally reliant on the Warrior Transition Battalion (WTB) to provide a van and a driver for Jeremy, and due to a shortage of people this will most likely happen only when he has appointments unless there's some major event we need to attend. This means that for the next year, Jeremy would be leaving the house maybe once a week, and any time I leave the house for more than a couple of hours I'd have to find someone to keep him company and give him the assistance he requires right now. I'm relatively sure Jer and I would kill each other in fairly short order with that kind of arrangement. He is not the type to take to confinement well.

So I'm going to start looking for a van and hoping we can get some sort of really great finance deal and maybe do a trade-in with our current vehicle. We looked into just renting a van for a year, but that would end up costing us more than buying one outright. We'd also hoped to find an organization that would loan us a van for the time that Jer needs it and then we could either return it or buy it from them at the end of that time, but thus far we've had no luck. We weren't really expecting to make a purchase quite that large right now, but once we get a couple of payoffs from the Traumatic Injury Life Insurance we should be okay.

It's frustrating because we kind of fall into the cracks-- Jer isn't wounded enough to qualify for a lot of services, but he is wounded enough to be in major need of some assistance right now. We're not giving up-- we'll figure this whole mess out eventually, and there are some people down in the army offices on post working hard to come up with solutions for us, but we're kind of hitting a wall. Adding shopping for a car and a new place to live wasn't really something we wanted to do, but it sure beats the alternatives!

Things will get better. I know it.

On a lighter note-- Connor had his first day of school today! There he is all dressed up right before we left. We got there early to talk with his teacher and the school nurse and to leave all of the equipment he needs to keep there (his wheelchair with stroller base and hydraulic base, hearing aid batteries, three day supply of medications, CPR shield, g-tube supplies, emergency seizure meds, and food). I dropped him off early in the classroom. His teacher, paraeducators, and therapists are all really excited about working with him, which is fantastic!

We did have one kind of amusing-yet-pitiful incident walking up to school. They have these three feet tall fluorescent yellow silhouettes of children holding red flags that say "SLOW" on them at the crosswalks in the school parking lot to remind drivers that they are in a school zone. Connor is apparently terrified of these signs. A woman walked by carrying one and Connor got this horrified look on his face and then burst into tears. So we're taking the side road to avoid the crosswalks on Thursday. Poor little guy.

Otherwise I think the day went pretty well for him. He worked with his physical therapists, played with the other kids, had circle time, and even got to go down the slide on the playground today. Yay for slides! Yay for Connor!

How did he get so big?

~Jess

In Which Jer Discovers A New Way To Annoy The Cats*

Thank you so much to the wonderful, person who read on here that Jer "can't reach anything and doesn't even have a table at which to eat," and promptly left a laptop table and a reaching tool on our doorstep!

The table is now firmly ensconced in his lap with his computer atop it, and Jeremy is having all sorts of fun figuring out which things he can pick up and manipulate with his reaching tool. He wants to rig some sort of mounting system on the wheelchair for it so that he can carry it around with him all the time-- it's a big hit and will no doubt prove very useful. So whoever you are, thank you again from Jeremy, Connor and me!


The cats do not thank you, however.





~Jess





*No cats were harmed in the making of this blog. Though if Loki doesn't quit pawing at my surge protector in order to reset the computer and cause the printer to make those interesting noises, I may seriously consider it. I mean it Loki-- stay away from my computer. Crazy cat.

In Which Jer is Home!

So in a totally crazy turn of events, Jer is now home. Surprise!

And when I say "home," I mean actual home and not another hospital this time; currently he is sitting in his wheelchair in the middle of the livingroom, reading this blog. I know, I know, he was supposed to come home on Tuesday. Here's what happened.

Some guys in his old unit stopped by to see him, and they'd just come from the airport and so they had one of those huge army-issued vans. They heard about the problems we were having with finding a way to get Jer home, and said "Well, we can take you home now. How about that?" Jer, totally and completely fed up with hospitals after spending almost a month in them, jumped at the chance.

These guys don't waste any time. Twenty minutes later he and all of his things were loaded into the van. Forty minutes after that he was home.

So here we are! I'm really excited to have him back. Currently the transport guys with his new unit are hoping to have some sort of cabulance system set up for us before Tuesday of next week. In the meantime Jer will be staying at home, embarking on exciting new adventures such as figuring out how to turn around in the middle of the apartment without banging his feet on something and teaching the cats that leaving their tails directly in the path of the wheelchair is Not a Good Idea.

Logistics are crazy. His wheels slide all over the apartment carpet. He can't reach anything-- he doesn't even have a table at which to eat. At the moment, we don't care.

So glad he's home!

~Jess

In Which Connor Protests The Salad Course In A Novel Way

So today was a day rather filled with excitement.

I got up to the hospital this morning to discover that they had decided to release Jeremy on Monday, which is as you all know, a federal holiday. Jer's bed was still broken, there were still things all over the floor, and the hospital said they couldn't arrange transportation for us that we wouldn't have to pay for out of pocket. All of the offices on post where we could possibly arrange for transportation were closed.

We finally convinced them to wait until Tuesday morning to release him, but it was a tense hour or so there while we tried to figure out what we were going to do. Now we just have to make sure everything runs smoothly on Tuesday. Wish us luck.

So after my visit to the hospital, my brother and sister-in-law helped me fix Jer's bed, get the house cleaned up, rearrange things to make them more accessible for Jer, and put down some more paving stones so he can hang out on the porch. My brother and I are trying to figure out a solution for the carpets, as the office mats cost about 80 bucks a pop. You can buy vinyl runners at Lowes for a little over two dollars a foot, but they are only 27 inches wide, which may not work for a wheelchair, as the wheels usually run between 25 and 27 inches wide. I'm going to take some measurements tomorrow to see where Jer's chair falls in that range. One possible solution we've come up with is to lay down a plastic protector over the carpet and then put hardboard over it, but this isn't an ideal solution as it will make the carpet extremely hard to clean. We'll just have to see what we come up with.

After we ran errands about town, my brother, his wife, Connor and I headed down to my favorite little Greek restaurant in Puyallup for some dinner. Unfortunately we didn't really get to enjoy our meal because Connor had a seizure during the salad course and my brother and his wife had to get everything to go while I performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on my son down on the floor next to our table. I'm pretty sure the people around us all had some stimulating dinner conversation after we left. I can't say I'm really surprised that he had a seizure-- stress and illness lower his threshold and he's certainly had enough of both recently. Either that or maybe he just didn't like the fact that we didn't offer him any salad. Oh well.

Once I got him breathing we took everything back to the apartment, put him to bed, and ate our dinner while watching the first half of the movie Hook before everyone got too tired and we called it a night.

He's fine now; fast asleep in his room. I'm not even checking on him every five seconds right now; I can tell he's breathing from here because his nose is stopped up and he snores. Well, that and the fact that his apnea monitor (AKA the Dead Baby Alarm) is on and is not currently making a loud siren noise.

Ugh. What a day. I'm off to finish my baklava, and then I'm for bed.

~Jess

In Which We Are Saved Once Again In The Nick of Time

So thank goodness, disaster has been averted once again.

I pointed out to Jer that since it was a holiday weekend, if we had a problem with his pain management or something our only option would be taking an ambulance to the ER. He was going to bring this up with the foot and ankle docs when he saw them this morning, but I don't think he got the chance. Now I wasn't there, but from what Jer said I believe the conversation went something like this:

Jer: I was told that I would probably be sent home on Saturday, and I have some concer--

Orthopedic Surgeon: You were told WHAT? I'll fix it.

So apparently what had happened was that the doctor in charge of pain management had glanced at Jer's chart, seen "calcaneal fractures," concluded that the injuries weren't serious, and set him up to go home tomorrow. The foot and ankle guy has now corrected the pain management guy's assumption (I kinda wish I'd been a fly on the wall for THAT conversation). So not only is Jer not going home until some time next week, but an anesthesiology team came by to talk to Jer so that they could start figuring out what he'll need to have for pain management at home, since the "take a couple of aspirin" approach isn't exactly going to work for him. Thank goodness he'll be there a while longer! He's still in way too much pain for them to send him to be an outpatient right now. This also gives us a few more days to figure out the car problem, which is still an issue.

We went ahead and had all of Jer's home health equipment delivered today. I disassembled our big bed, and it's now leaning against the wall waiting to go to a storage unit. I'll be sleeping either on a cot or a single bed-- whatever will fit and still leave Jer enough room to maneuver in and out of the area on a wheelchair. I tried tooling around the house in his new chair-- it's going to be tough. The carpet pile is really too high for the chair to move around easily, and he won't be able to turn the chair around anywhere but the living room or the bedroom. We'll make do for now, though. We have a Hoyer Lift sitting in the room now along with the infamous commode chair and a sliding board. The bath transfer bench will get here on Tuesday.

The hospital bed looks pretty much like a regular bed if I put the rails down, as long as you discount the trapeze hanging from the top, the bed crank at the bottom, and the remote control. I made a run to the store today and bought an extendable shower head, some really nice twin-size bedding (since he's going to be spending quite a bit of time in that bed) and a whole bunch of extra firm pillows. Jer has to have his feet propped up on them.

The bed crank is kind of funny-- I didn't realize they even made beds with those any more. It controls the upward and downward movement of the bed as a whole, and you can use it to adjust the angle of the bed if the power runs out and you can't use the remote control. It reminds me of the children's book, Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans. Remember?

"Madeline soon ate and drank.

on her bed there was a crank,

and a crack on the ceiling had the habit

of sometimes looking like a rabbit."

Of course, everything reminds me of something in a book. Oh well. I couldn't help but check the ceiling, though. No rabbits, though there is one section of bumps that could remind you a little of a goat if you squint really hard and are on a lot of painkillers like Jer will be.

I'll be sure to point it out to him.

~Jess