The Circle of Friends

Sara is a very lucky woman...to have the friends she has. I know it has been hard on both them and her to not see each other. We needed to keep the stimulation to a minimum while she was in such bad condition, so I limited it to immediate family and Daniel. (actually..that was the policy at UC Davis...Kaiser has an open ICU policy...family oks visitors)

So..now that she is doing so well she needs her friends back, and they need her back.

We got together tonight to talk about her, her condition, answer any questions, tell them what to expect, what they'll see, etc. We talked about how she communicates, what she can feel, where they can touch her, etc. We talked about being themselves with her...if they want to cry, cry...if they want to talk aobut how scared they were/are, talk about it...if they want to crack jokes, crack jokes. The Sara they love is inside that pretty girl on the bed. She wants to get out as much as they want her to.

They are a real great bunch of people. I want to call them kids, but they aren't. Well, they are to me... But they are just very genuine people who care about her and each other. I am so glad she has that.

We talked about the next phase being a very long, often tedious road, for recovery. They know. They all seemed pretty well accepting of where she is now and what happens next. They understand her physical state. And I told them about her mental state.

She spelled her first word with the letter board today. She spelled sad. Sad. I looked at her and she started to cry, so I started to cry. We had a nice boo hoo about being sad about where she is, missing her kitty, missing her friends, sad she's so hurt, sad about the holidays started...lots of stuff she's sad about. I've been so fixated on getting her patched up from the physical issues that I didn't head off the mental ones. I mean, intrinsically I knew she was going to need to express her feelings, but we still don't have an easy vehicle for that yet.

Communication is going to be a big key for her. It's bad enough she's locked inside her body...but right now she's also locked inside her mind. There is only so much we can do with yes/no answers and someone who tires so quickly. I also found out that the nursing staff sometimes reverses the yes/no by accident...so I have to straighten it back out. Down is yes, up is no. Down is easier for her right now... But, I need to get somebody to tell me what I either need to do for her myself, or get someone who is trained to help her communicate via technology...and soon.

I totally understood them not wanting to start any kind of therapy, rehab stuff with her until after she was stable. Well, now she's stable, so lets get with it. And while we start that, she can be reconnecting with her social group and start looking ahead to the next steps.

(btw...I figured out that she was just super tired today. they are waking her up once an hour vor vitals checks...she's beat. they did a respirator off test yesterday, too, which didn't go well and beats her up. After letting her get a two and a half hour nap, and then working with her, she was fine. She was still tired, though and only stayed up about a half hour with me. Totally understandable. I'm going to ask the doctors on Monday to change her neuro check schedule to every 3 hours, so she can rest.