Sunday, November 12th

Back at Mom’s, to take a shower and get some laundry done, so thought I would update everyone while I was here. Still don’t have internet in Kerrie’s room, but hoping that will be corrected today.

It’s been brought to my attention that some family & friends have a misconception of how well Kerrie is doing and I am thinking maybe I have been painting too rosy of a picture of her in the last few posts? 

I have been trying to give everyone what good news there is, and not make everything look like gloom and doom, but I guess maybe I have made things appear more positive than they really are right now. If that is the case I apologize for that.

Yes…she has been responding to us at times, has had some movement in her right arm and leg, has been able to move her tongue and has been able to sit on the side of the bed but she is, by no means, cured or ready to come home.

To get her on the side of the bed requires several people assisting and holding her up. It’s part of her physical therapy. The other day she was able to maintain, for almost 10 minutes, without having people holding her up on both sides.. but they did have to prop pillows behind her, for support, and to keep her from falling backwards. 

As for moving her arm, leg,toes or tongue.. even the smallest movement is a good sign, and almost a miracle, as the damage to her brain has been so severe that the Nuerology team felt the paralysis was permananet. She’s proving them wrong on that one as she is showing she does have sensation there. There are only two occasions, that we remember, where she was able to give any movement when asked and most of it has been involuntary movement, like toe twitching, being caused by the nerves. But the whole point is that means she has sensation in the nerves and that they may not be permanently damaged. So yes, we get excited when her foot moves at all.. this does not mean she’s up and walking around or ready to walk out the door of the hospital :)  I feel bad that some people have taken this news to mean she is doing better than she is.

Kerrie has been very out of it today, not very responsive at all and it has been difficult for us to wake her. I’m a little worried about this, and I know Mom is too, but we’ll wait to see if she wakes up a little more later.

Her day started with ENT coming in to suction the clots out of her nasal passages, again, and this isn’t the most pleasant way to start the day.. so perhaps she is just completely worn out from that? We also had them take a look inside her mouth and throat. I noticed, last night, that there was something in her mouth and it almost looked as if she were wearing a retainer. She’s not able to open her mouth very wide, so it doesn’t surprise me that we did’t see this before.. I must have just been sitting at the perfect angle. The top of her mouth, and back of her top row of teeth, were covered with a thick, hardened mass of something. We think it is probably all the gunk from her lungs that she was coughing up and couldn’t swallow. Several days ago she kept trying to reach into her mouth, like she was wanting to get something out, but we didn’t see this at the time. ENT was able to pry all the stuff off the roof of her mouth and back of her teeth and got a huge amount of stuff out of the back of her throat and  the back of her tongue. I know it sounds disgusting.. but Kerrie wanted me to share details and people have asked for them.. you got ’em.

Immediately after they finished she closed her mouth and started breathing through her nose. We haven’t seen her be able to close her mouth in a long time, so this may have been the reason.. and the poor girl wasn’t able to tell us about it. Her breathing seemed to improve as well, and was not as hard and labored as it has been for the past week. When we asked if she was able to breath better, and if she felt better, now that the stuff was gone and she shook her head yes. I feel so bad that we didn’t notice it earlier.. there was so much stuff, and it was as hard as concrete, so I have a feeling it had been there for at least a week if not longer.

Lots of toe twitching, with the right foot, this morning.. but nothing from the right arm or hand.

When I left, Mom was helping her to wash her face and trying to get her cleaned up a little. Then they were going to try to get Kerrie to do some of her excersizes, but getting her to wake up.. and then to stay awake.. has been pretty difficult today.

Hopefully they have had some success and she’s a little more alert when I get back.

Jenn