...adjustments...

Just so you know...the living situation will stay the same. Sara is not going to be in any position to come home any time soon, so we'll hold tight and give her time to heal before making any changes on the home front.

Nanci asked me last night if Sara couldn't come home soon would I want to move...I thought about it and it was an easy no... I just got a little ahead of myself.

Anyway - yes, her Neurologist gave the go ahead to start looking for a sub-acute facility for her. Mainly because she is ventilator dependent still and needs a facility and staff that can adequately handle that. He also made an adjustment to her neuro checks. Instead of every hour 24x7, they are every 2hrs during the day shift, and every 4 hrs at night. She'll be able to start getting some rest.

Also, he is going to put her on Prozac. Before getting all up in arms about it...i will offer an explanation. It helps in cases like these two ways: 1) an anti-depressant certainly can't hurt when someone has had their entire life turned upside down and is now quadraplegic, and 2) it helps head injury patients be more engaged/awake... And, if they are going to start getting her to communicate with them better, and benefit from ANY therapy, she has to be more of both...

Physical medicine is going to start therapy with her. Working her joints, especially her right hand and jaw, as those are tight. The nursing staff (starting with Nurse-Carlo at UCD) have been moving and flexing her joints a couple of times a day. The collar on her neck has prevented any jaw action. Dr. Neuro gave the ok to pull the front off the collar when she is flat, and work her jaw to open her mouth.

The collar - will be on for at least another 4 weeks. Although the break in C1 is "fairly minor" according to her doc, the ligaments and soft structures were hammered pretty hard and have to have a chance to heal. They will test remove it in another 4 weeks, and xray for position. If her vertabrae are allowed to move too much, they'll put the collar back on (as the ligaments are too loose and still need to heal.)

I told Sara that we needed her to communicate easily with everyone, not just me. She and I already have a close bond, and a lot of unspoken communication, but hospital staff need to feel like they are communicating well with her. So, to that end, she and I worked together this afternoon and blinks are much easier for her, quicker, don't fatique her as much, so we are changing to that. blink once for yes...nothing for no (for now). When she couldn't blink, or keep her eyes open at all, the only way was to hold open her lids and have her move eyes up and down. She's progressed to the point that her eyes are open most of the time now when she's awake. Hopefully the staff will find this easier and work with her more.

and...she smiled...I couldn't believe it...I said something really funny...and she smiled at me... I don't care what anybody says...that was worth every sleepless night since this started...my baby girl smiled at me...

(then I got all goo goo on her and she rolled her eyes...see? some things never change...)