Day 10

5:45pm
Yesterdays blog was somehow lost.  This is how we keep our families posted and so sorry about that.

Yesterday was our last day in the ICU once a bed became available on the Step Down unit...the transfer happened last night.  We will miss all of the people who have become so involved in Andrew's care.  The ICU nursing staff and allied staff were terrific and we feel that Andrew received great care there.  Marcie and I became pretty good 'nurses' and we got the feeling that our level of participation was a little unusual, but what else can parents do?  It is a busy bit of work. 

We had the day start yesterday with a rumble and loud bang as a 4.0 earthquake rolled through the Bay area.  Your visit to San Fran is not complete unless you have had one of their earthquakes...forget the cable cars.  Next we got to see Tony, our favourite ICU fixture and respiratory technician who always made us happy, do a take down on an ICU patient who became a little disoriented and tried to do an 'OJ Simpson for the door'...nice work, Tony! (You need to be older to remember those old OJ commercials.)

Andrew is getting a pretty good workout.   Physiotherapy is getting him up a little more and at this point that is exhausting work. Debra is strong and as his PT she will not take, "no".  His appetite is returning and he is starting to devour his food.  He is not ready for pizza, but that is what he wants along with anything involving bacon...I think that bacon-flavoured Ensure would be a big hit for the teenage demographic.  Vaunna came by today from speech therapy and she is the one who will approve the advancement of Andrew's diet, and therefore Andrew is clearly in love with her.

Now we are working on moving to another hospital.  The way that insurance works here is that you have to go through approval processes, insurance providers talking and negotiating with each other, and determinations of where you will end up for your care.   The Canadian system is so different and so easy.  We are wading through the insurance system now that we have improvement in Andrew and we can begin to think of other things.  After that will be the process of getting Andrew back to B.C. and determining where he will best be served.   This means many phone calls.

Marcie got out for a few minutes today with her friend Janet.  It was a beautiful day here and a little fresh air will do her good.  Lastly, Marcie and I had a chuckle last night when I spoke to my good friend Steve, the inspiration to write a blog to keep family and friends informed.  He told me that he tries to figure out who writes the blog on a particular day.  To be clear, even though English 100 was my (Steve's) hardest university course, 100 times more difficult than second year calculus for me,  Marcie gets to edit, but I get to write the blog.  It is a great way to vent, communicate and lastly provide a document that we can show Andrew one day so that we can insist on payback,  big time payback!

Day 9

Oh no.  The whole post got lost in cyberspace somewhere.  Must have been that 4.0 earthquake in San Francisco.

Day 8

1:30pm
We are a full week past the big event.  Things have settled into some kind of routine here.  It is kind of like planting a garden and then everyday there are some small changes, a little new shoot here, a little flower here, and other things that you know still have to poke their head out of the ground and you have read the package and seen that the crop won't be ready for 85 days...it is all about the patience and the care, I suppose. 

So, Andrew is eating a little better today, had a little more time out of bed, and we continue to stay at his side and help with all of the chores that make up his daily care.  It is an amazing experience to be able to participate in your son's rehabilitation.  Andrew does some surprising things...says things that we wouldn't expect, remembers events that we had forgotten, and makes us laugh.  Yesterday, he beat me everytime at 'thumb game'. Also yesterday, he remembered a chorus from a song that we had sung two days earlier, and this morning he reminded us that his brother was at a regatta yesterday at Elk Lake and qualified for the pair final.  He showed us a bit of his sense of humour today and was at times much more alert than he has been and for longer periods of time.  We are reminded that there are many stages to recovery from a head injury and it will be a long journey.  So, for the next couple of days we are looking forward to a little more mobilization, improved nutrition, and continued cognitive improvement.  He is doing us proud.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Day 7

4 pm
Andrew was out of bed for the first time.  It was just sitting in a chair; one more small step.  His eating is slowly improving.  He needs a lot of calories in order to heal and so he will need some extra supplementation until he is able to progress to a more regular diet.  Andrew gets exhausted pretty easily when we put him through the routine of moving, eating, lung exercises, oral care and more...so there are lots of naps.  Andrew is slowly but steadily making a few steps forward today.  It looks like he will stay in the ICU today as they move beds around. 

Our nurse for the second day is a Vancouver Islander from the little town of You Bou...Lesley.  She was here the day that we came in and it was nice to have a familiar voice to make one feel at home.  Tonight we have Carlito and the parade of helpers in Andrew's recovery continues.  It has been a whole week...the longest and shortest of our lives...and for many of our family and friends.   The blog comments are so great and we look forward to them everyday.

Day 6

9:55pm (started at least 5 times today...where does the time go?...this is hard work and time consuming business taking care of a son in the ICU)
Andrew was busy last pm until late and what a great thing to be able to have the time on our hands to spend with Andrew until he was settled.  Today was a good day for our young man.  He is a little brighter and more comfortable.

He passed the swallow test with Vauna, our speech therapist, in order to begin oral feeding.  He probably had an aspiration pneumonia at the outset but now his lungs are steadily improving and we certainly don't want to risk that again. So we started slowly and Andrew progressed well.  Tony, our awesome respiratory tech, gave Andrew some exercizes to get the lungs stronger and healthier and I guess that the competitiveness in Andrew makes that a fun distraction, if you can call it that.  Brian from physical therapy came by as well and started the process of mobilizing him.  Orthopedics has cleared him for weight-bearing and so tomorrow he'll be out of bed hopefully for a short time, if only sitting in a chair.  We met our new attending neurosurgeon and he was reassuring us that things are going as well as we could hope.  Our new nurse, Robin, came on this evening and she had been on the night when Andrew came in...that was reassuring.  She was amazed at his progress. Andrew was in such rough shape that when she made the long drive back to her home after shift last week, she wanted to check on Andrew, so she used her cell phone driving and got a ticket...fortunately just a warning.  Thanks to Robin for being concerned even after shift had ended!

The biggest thing today was the fact that Andrew smiled for us...that was amazing :)

How life can change in an instant!  Be safe tonight with the weekend looming.  Thanks so much for all of the continued support for Andrew.  Go Andrew!  Go! ... Whoops.  Editted after the fact.  Marcie made me go back and add Go Bears! (Go On Beat Expectations Andrew Recover Soon!) ( I definitely never publish without the Queen's approval.)

More Day 5

8:00pm

Andrew had a pretty busy day today starting with removal of the little tube measuring his intracranial pressure and the breathing tube.  He had a few visitors and so thanks for that.  Some really terrific goodies from several folks; and special thanks to the Kenyans for plying the ICU with unexpected treats...they really know that the way to nurses' hearts is through their bellies.  More great offers at every turn, and again thank you for this amazing support.

The community of people involved in the care of the trauma patient is amazing.  We had Daisy turn over care to Rodney, our Day 1 incredibly organized and efficient nurse, visits by the physician's assistant (to Dr. Moure), something that we don't have in Canada, someone to find a neck collar that fits Andrew's moose of a neck (he will have a collar for 6 weeks), speech therapist to check the ability to start swallowing (but Andrew was too sedated when she came so he will have to wait until the a.m.), the physical therapist who wants to launch things as soon as tomorrow, Tony the very capable respiratory therapist with the most amazing outlook on things, Karen, the wound care specialist for the county, and, of course, the ICU team of various residents...on and on it goes.  Andrew has always needed to try a little harder to get noticed considering that he is the third child...complete success this time around.

Andrew is pretty sleepy.  He can't sit up and have a conversation.  His speech is pretty difficult after having a tube through the vocal chords for four days.  He is still sedated with narcotics for pain, but that should decrease tomorrow.  He is pretty restless as expected at times and at others is a little more focused.  In fact, he grabbed a pen to write that he wanted his right "shoulder in a cast please" (he has a cracked scapula) and that "a cast would help".  As soon as we got him into a sling to support the shoulder he went straight to sleep and was happy.  He wrote a couple other notes requesting food and of all things fondue...did not specify what kind.  He got a hold of my iPhone and was able to get out of my music and scroll through things; unfortunately I didn't have much music to his liking.

As we continue down this road, and barring speed bumps, the next few days will involve mum and dad doing a lot of comforting, soft speaking to help reorient him and at times more brain activity focusing on the speech therapy, physical therapy and things like eating.  There won't be a lot of time for visitors we suspect, but in our free moments we go to the blog to read all of those terrific comments by you, the blog readers...you give us tremendous support to keep this process going.  Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and generosity.

Day 5

At 7:30am the breathing tube was removed as Andrew was strong overnight and was breathing well. So, a step up on that big ladder that he has to climb. The ICU room is a lot quieter and roomier without all of that respiratory equipment and IV drips. He will probably get out of the ICU tomorrow on continued good behaviour. As expected he is pretty sleepy and pretty hoarse from the tube over the last number of days.

He wrote us a note today!

Thanks again for all of the outpouring of support in this difficult situation. We remain hopeful.