Accident Update, Basketball, Moving and Belle

Hey all,

Long overdue for an update. Sorry to leave you hanging on the results of my friend's dad's accident. He's better, to a certain degree. But better every day. He's out of ICU, wearing the halo and they even have him walking down the hallway with a walker and now eating on his own. This is amazing in itself, considering the injury he sustained in the accident. Unfortunately, there's no quick fix for bleeding and swelling on the brain, and a C-2 break. I understood the impact of the brain injury right away, but a 'C-2 break' didn't quite 'register' until I came home and looked it up online. Thank you Google!!! :-) When I saw the following table (as well as other stats on other sites), it put it all in perspective ... he was a VERY lucky man.

Level of injury

C2 - C3

• Usually fatal as a result of inability to breathe
• Totally dependent for all care

C4

• Quadriplegia and breathing difficulty;usually needs a ventilator
• Dependent for all cares
  

C-5

• Quadriplegia with some shoulder and elbow function
• May be able to feed self using assistive devices
• Usually can breathe without a ventilator, but may need other types of respiratory support

He may be sporting the latest 'halo look', but he's breathing on his own, feeding himself and it may be with the aid of a walker, but he's WALKING down that hallway daily. But there's still a long way to go for both the physical and psychological therapy/rehab.

They haven't started rehab with him yet because they don't feel he's progressed far enough with the brain injury. The long term memory is there, but the short term isn't. And they won't start the physical rehabilitation until the brain is functioning a little better. This is also very frustrating for his family, because they would rather see him at least doing something physically than lying in the bed for so many hours a day. He's not a big man to begin with so he needs all the exercise his body can handle and get himself further on that road to recovery.

He's still very confused at times :-( When I was there, he knew who I was, but kept referring to work, ie, had to get going cause he had to move the machines at work. Continuously focused on work. I think he thought he was in a work accident too by some of his comments. Other times, you could see he was trying to joke around with us lol. So the brain is working ... just not quite the way it used to right now ... but that will hopefully be improving every day as well! On Sun, he was able to remember what he had for dinner when asked a couple of hrs later ... he couldn't do that on Friday.

Considering it's been 5 weeks since the accident and he was in a drug induced coma for the first two, he's really only had three weeks recovery from very serious injuries. He's made great progress. Is doing things that are considered 'a miracle' by some. But he's really only taken a baby step towards a 'full recovery' whatever that will mean for him in the end. But he's here, that's the main thing. And everyone is thankful for him being able to have that first baby step at all.

As for the rest of us, it's been another krazy month in the korner :-)

Basketball season has started. Both boys are having a ball and Alec has turned out to be the high scorer on his team :-) Not that they win alot LOL, (which doesn't matter of course) but he's gotten quite a few points for his team in each game :-) Adam isn't playing competitively yet as he's still too young, but it will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years with him also. He's playing rec ball and has quite the shot as well :-) I've told them both I'm very proud of them, and think it's great they're able to get so many baskets, but I do also remind them before every practice/game "pass the ball too ... nobody likes a ball hog. You want them (team members) to pass to you so you can take the shot, make sure you pass to them and they can shoot too ... it goes both ways ..." But that's it for the motherly advice ... aside from Have Fun :-)

I've decided to invite a little more chaos into my life and sell the house :-) I've never liked the street we live on and have wanted to move back into a subdivision type neighbourhood since we moved to this house four years ago. It's time. I don't plan on moving out of the school district, just to another house in the same community we're in now. So I've been to the broker, had the Realtor in and the "For Sale" sign goes up this week :-) It's going to be a HUGE project to take on myself ... but it's time. The house I wanted to buy of course just got a conditional offer on it :-( So, now it's a race. Can I sell my house before the other people sell theirs? I haven't made an offer on the other one yet, cause I can't make a 'clean' offer without a conditional sale. So it's a wait and see. The way I see it though, everything happens for a reason, so if the house is gone, there will be another one.

Had a bad scare with Belle this weekend :-( We had gone to Alec's basketball game, got home a couple of hours later and as I went around the back, Alec had gone in the front door, and came running out the back saying 'There's something wrong with Belle!!!' I ran into the house and there she was at the back door shaking uncontrollably. She couldn't walk properly because she was shaking so much. I had no idea what was wrong with her, but could definitely tell she wasn't 'normal'. My first thought was 'the kids Halloween bags!!! She's eaten some of those mini chocolate bars out of their bags!' I know chocolate can kill dogs, so I ran around the house looking for chocolate bar wrappers. Nothing. Ran back upstairs and saw only one thing that might have been what was causing whatever was wrong with her.

She had grabbed an old, forgotten, Tim Hortons coffee cup that I had thrown away out of the downstairs garbage, ate the moldy coffee sludge at the bottom and ended up with mold toxicity. After calling the vet and confirming that's what it was, they said to rush her down there, then we had to take her to the animal hospital where she spent the night :-(

After an IV drip, flushing out her system, and a Valium drip to control the tremors and onset of seizure, she was recovered and home the next day. And Mama's now throwing her old coffee cups into the neighbours garbage!!!! Kidding ;-) Although I'm still not sure how I'm going to cover that outrageous vet bill before Xmas, I couldn't just let my girl die. I've told a few people what happened to her, and have had one person out of all say 'I wouldn't have paid that money to save her, she's only a dog' ... I guess I'm just not made that way. Yes, I know hundreds of dollars for an emergency vet bill is outrageous ... and downright impossible on a single mom's salary ... just before Xmas, but it doesn't matter that she's 'only a dog'. She's part of our family and I couldn't do that to my children, or myself, to just take her to a vet and say 'nope, don't want to pay for it, put her down'. Financially foolish or not ... I just couldn't.

My highlight of this past weekend was seeing George Canyon. He is one of Canada's hottest Country singers right now. He gave a special concert for the troops on Nov 11th, and my project at work was one of the sponsors of the show. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and scooped tickets to the concert :-) It was great! Our company had a table reserved so the seats were excellent, and I managed to take 100 pics that night LOL.

That's it for tonight all. My brain is tired and ready for bed.
Until next time!
K