He is so far stable in ICU, he still has a tube in his throat so he is not able to speak just yet. We are working with some elaborate eye blinking and eyebrow signals for responses, which are entertaining at best. I have gotten a few smiles as well, to help defrost my heart. I told him that I knew he would not die yesterday as sadly Nelson Mandela had passed away and I knew he would certainly not want to share the limelight. He liked that.
He has moved and can feel (so far) his right hand. He also shrugged his shoulders for me which he seemed quite pleased with himself for. Early days yet for that and the ICU doc seems quite hopeful. Pray, hope, pray.

He is very calm so far and seems to be getting some sleep which is magnificent. Again…pray, hope, pray that he can remain calm and endure the tedium of this next stage.

Each of us is dealing so differently with our stress responses;
My super power apparently, is to alternate between being calmly supportive and crying. But mostly i seem to be best at good old fashioned ugly crying. Should anyone here require any tears, I am your gal. I have all of them.

Trudy is excellent at getting it done. Doing the mountains of required paperwork, making arrangements, calls, planning. She is a rock of practicality and function. Waiting around is the worst for her I think and in true spirit of always needing to do something, she manages to immediately need to use the washroom once the stress creeps in through the barricade of love, prayers and blanketed hope we are all trying to hide under.

I cry and she toilets.

Kareen responds to each new element of this saga by being strong, practical and using her nursing background to compartmentalize and deal with each new hurdle. She is also still able to be a total mom, trying to have me sit on her lap when I stopped holding it together in the emergency waiting room. I am a 35 year old woman, currently sporting a rather frizzy humidity induced afro and permanent cry face. Its pretty much the scene for a Hallmark card.

The prayers, support and love are certainly felt. All we can do now is wait.

“Sleeping” on the brown leather reclining couch in our room. Yesterday was likely the second longest day of my life and the green glowing numbers on the digital clock on the shelf have been taunting me since about 3:14am. What a useless time 3am is when all you can do is wonder about things that you have no control over. Like “I hope he is he ok” “Will this recovery be better than the last?” and “How many people have sat their bums on this couch?”

I keep thinking about him in his ICU bed and hoping he is not lonely. They have him very well monitored and someone is with him always, it’s just not us. I went to see him just before stupid 4am but he was sleeping. (Yet another pointless early morning hour. ) Mum is going to go in to talk to him while they do his vitals at 5 so I am sure he will like that.

She can explain to him, as only she can, that the tube in his throat is temporary and his movement will come back once his spine has had more time to heal.

Everything happens for a reason and obviously there was some reason that he needed to have a bigger plate. Perhaps cannon firing requires something that could stand a bit more torque, so this is for the best overall.

One more day.

He is in the ICU now and will likely be for the next 4-5 days.
They were able to go in and remove the smaller, plate and install the new larger one. His spine was compressed by the dislodged bone which was causing paralysis elbows down this afternoon. The new plate is held in with 8 screws and covers C4 to T3, which is apparently significantly larger than the last one, his bones are very brittle, due to his pre existing condition, and the Dr did say there are no guarantees that the screws will not dislodge again in the future. But the larger plate with the extra screws and a much more sedated healing stretch should allow for the bones to fuse and help with the overall strengthening. It’s going to be a long road and he is going to have to take it EASY!

Again, he has pulled through another unimaginable set of circumstances. Unreal. Right now he is stable and being very well cared for in the ICU.

Too exhausted right now, but will update more tomorrow.

He is in surgery now. Not sure how long they expect to be. Will update when we hear from the doctor. He has all of our love.

The lower screws of the titanium plate have broken off from the bone, due to the shape of his neck and how brittle his bones are. He goes back into emergency surgery around 6pm tonight. There is some new cage, graph, plate or contraption that they can try.

A whole new wave of strength is needed but instead we all feel calmly numb and simply pray. This extended nightmare must be happening for some reason, everything happens for some reason. I wish we could fast forward to that part where we are all on the other side of this at home, together, whole and healthy.

Back at St. Clair he had a bad turn this morning. Dr came to the house and was not pleased with progress and some new symptoms that appeared today.

Every single prayer is needed.
Will try to update more as we know.

In times of turmoil and uncertainty it seems so much easier to learn things that perhaps you already knew, but never fully processed. I am learning the following:

My mother is a tireless human. She has the energy of a small village who’s water source is clearly laced with Redbull and caffeine.

My hatred for mosquitoes knows no limits. They serve no functional purpose in my life, besides to fester my eternal hatred and bite me with infuriating accuracy. In other news we have lots of mosquitoes at home. All of the mosquitoes live in my parents house. No one else seems affected. I believe there to be some sort of conspiracy going on.

I have no issues lying to small children. Things like “sorry, there is no more ice cream” and “we can’t go in the pool because it’s sleeping” simply roll off my tongue. “Don’t climb up that rock” somehow didn’t occur to me.

Tiny nephews concentrating on making tiny plastic frogs jump into a dish,  – a game that belonged to me as a child – *my mother is clearly a hoarder* –  however do make everything so very much better. 

My Dad is so strong and so determined that I don’t think a traffic jam of oxen could stop him.

His new, at home physiotherapist, came for our 1st visit and was simply amazing. He gave us all the confidence that with his huge bank of knowledge and experience he would have Jim walking again and eventually back to full ability and range. All that is good in the universe, I bow to you.

The physio guy had some electrode type contraptions that he used to activate all his muscle synapses and help to get all the nerve endings firing again. Trudy has decided that we should use it on her abs. She is an idiot going to have a six pack in no time.

The session was over an hour and he really got a huge workout, which was amazing! We were even able to get him into the wheelchair and have a little meander around the house and sit to watch the sunset.

He got tired, but not as quickly as could be expected, and truly the only thing missing was some wine and cheese.

Seeing him in his favourite spot on the front porch, encased (for the 1st time in over a week) in fresh air and the glow of the setting sun made me happier and more hopeful than I could have hoped.

One more day closer.

also this happened…

Slow and steady wins the race…or some shyte like that.

He had a pretty good night and day, all settled in at home. We are taking turns on ‘duty’, but all in all and despite himself, he is actually a very good patient overall. Shocking really. I did cook him lunch today and he pointed out that I should have sautéed the carrots in butter a bit more. I pointed out that beggars can’t be choosers and to shut up and eat his f@#*ing food. He ate it all.

We have our 1st at home physiotherapist apt tomorrow morning so that should be entertaining for me to make a video most restorative and healing on a cellular level.

Poor chap has quite a bit of pain, especially in his shoulders, so lots to do with the fact that he was…oh yeah…hit by a car that broke his neck and had surgery on his spine. The doctor is not concerned and says that the 3-5th day after the actual operation are the worst in terms of pain and swelling. We are at day 4 today. So I am hopeful that he will start to slowly feel better with each passing day.

I have to say in my 35.5 years of knowing him I can with very vague recollection recall him complaining of pain, with almost nonexistent frequency. It was more common to find him happily watching TV or reading a book with a large bleeding wound, and when you responded like a normal human with “oh my god what happened to your head (arm, leg, etc)?” he would nonchalantly ask “where did I scratch myself?”

So seeing him in obvious pain is pretty unsettling and I would happily do anything to share or take all of it from him. But I can’t. So instead we grind up the tastiest cocktail of pain killers the doc prescribed into a tea cup and let him sip some of this silly pain away. One day closer, one more day down.

We are home. The dr said he was happy enough with his progress that we were allowed to take him home last night. Praises to all that is good! He is now cozy and set up on a medical reclining chair in the TV room. Thank you to young Robbie for all of the help and sweet support in moving him and to Trudy for the worlds slowest and most careful drive up this dauntingly bumpy hill. But mostly thanks to Kareen for sitting behind him to hold his head and saying so many prayers, and cringing at each road surface undulation, that we likely had an envoy of angels floating us home. Bonus special thanks to Jim for keeping such a decently stocked bar, my nerves certainly required some serious rehydration.

He is very sore but determined that this is where he is going to heal fully and regain his strength in this very special place and life they have made for themselves here.