Update 11/18/2012 By Michelle

This week has been very hard as well as very good. It really has been a rollercoaster ride. My mom hates roller coasters and I am beginning to feel the effects of the ups and downs of such stress. The week started out with my mom getting an MRI, EEG and spinal tap. The MRI and EEG were just being redone to check progress/differences in the last set that was taken. The MRI showed some fluid in the lower ventricle of her brain. They were concerned it could be the beginnings of an infection, so they did the spinal tap to test the fluid for infection. The fluid had not been there during her last MRI. The results came back negative for infection. The doctor thinks there was not as much fluid as maybe they originally thought. He is not worried about it at this point, but the other thing that might be happening is a leak in her spinal cord causing pockets of spinal fluid in and around her brain. We will just keep watching for the signs he talked about and pray hard that this is not the case. Each of these tests pretty much wiped my mom out for the day. I got to escort her to the MRI and she was all smiles on the way down and on the way back up. She just slept most of those three days, but seemed in good spirits. We completed her first full week of therapy. Overall she did really well. She seems to really like her therapists and tries so hard for them. Two weeks ago, she was not able to open her mouth. The muscles were so tight from being in the c-collar for two months as well as not trying to work them. Yesterday and today she opened her mouth when asked to have her teeth brushed. She can only open enough to get a sponge brush in, but such progress. She opens a bit more each time and seems to be gaining more control over her facial muscles. Her expressions have also gotten much more animated. We massage her face throughout the day (which is one of her favorite things) to try and help those muscles wake up and start working again. We did have an "incident" in the gym. She was up her her chair for PT one day and they decided to take her to the gym for the session. They were going to work on measuring her range of motion. They got her transferred to the big table with a wedge under her head so she could remain at the proper 30 degree angle. She winced a few times as they pushed and moved her legs more than they have moved in 9 weeks. This is good though. This means she has feeling in her muscles and body. They got her back up into her chair and I went around to see how she was doing. She was off in a stare that I had not seen before. Her pupils were very small and she would not respond to me for a few seconds. When she did finally respond, her eyes were completely cross. We got her tipped backwards as far as we could in her chair and the PT ran for the blood pressure machine. Her blood pressure was really low and she was still not responding, so they pushed the emergency button and within 15 seconds, she had a dozen doctors and nurses around her. I knew this was what would happen. She is in a good place where they know to watch for these things. I had stepped back sensing she would be attended to. It became too much for me and I had to step out. She was and is okay. They just had not given her her blood pressure medicine that morning to keep her pressures up since it was high enough when they got her into her chair. They will be giving that medicine to her anytime she heads to the gym now. Her body is responding and adjusting really well on it's own when we just tip her up or down in the chair. She loves sitting in her wheelchair. At the beginning of the week, she was doing an hour to an hour and a half at a time. On friday, she was in it for six hours straight. She kept telling us she was not ready to get out of it. On Saturday she was able to stay in it for eight hours. This is amazing progress for her! Yesterday we took her outside to sit in the sun. She smiled and soaked up the rays! After that we took her to the rec room and participated in a craft project. I had not been sure how well she would do in a recreation class since she cannot move her hands or arms. She is such a crafty person and I did not want it to be hard on her to not do the craft herself. They were making fleece scarves and fleece pillows. She picked the fabric by her facial expressions. She turned her nose up and gave a disgusted face at the ones she did not like and raised her eyes really big when we held up the ones she wanted to use. We pushed her right up to the table and she watched my grandma and I cut and tie for her. She did really well. The day ended with a movie in the theater room here. She had a good day. Even a good day is not without the stress and frustration of trying to communicate with us what she needs. She still has pain and is on different pain medicine for different things. The hard part is figuring out what is hurting her and if she needs pain medicine or if she just needs to be readjusted. She still cannot talk. The trach she has is preventing air from coming up her throat. There is a balloon that they fill up around the trach inside her neck. Twice this week, they have deflated that balloon to let air run through her vocal cords. She did not like it the first time. Her body is no longer used to that sensation. The second time she did really well. They are trying to get her to make sounds during this time. She has not made sounds yet, but I can tell she is getting used to the idea again. She has blood test taken every day to check for many things. This week the pulmonologist (a genius in our book) said her red blood cells have doubled since she got here and for the first time it is increasing instead of decreasing. This is a really, really good sign of the miracle of healing that is taking place inside her body. Remember, her body was broken beyond the repair of man's medicine alone. This week will bring more therapy sessions, more firsts for her since the accident and more information. This week we will be getting more information about the overall game plan while she is here at Craig. We will get a better explanation of what they feel her diagnosis is as well as her prognosis. We will get information about what her future might look like. We will start to discover what training and preparations we need to make for her to be able to live at home. This might not be possible. I pray so hard that she will be healed to an extent that we can manage her care at home. She does not want to live anywhere else. For the first time ever, we will celebrate purely the giving of thanks on Thanksgiving instead of the tradition of food. We have so much to be thankful for. Please remember her in your prayers and praises of thanksgiving this holiday season.