June 14th, 2007

Now that I know I am in the right spot I can continue with my update. Jess had another seizure on Memorial Day. We had planned on trying to go camping that weekend but ended up staying home. Thank goodness! We were able to stop it this time with medication but it is sure scary. So we increased his medicine 25 mg. He seems to be ok with it. In fact, we got a few half smiles yesterday. Those little smiles make my day.

Let's see, November was uneventful but busy. We keep Jess extremely busy with therapy, horseback riding and school. He only has one more year of school and the teachers of the two classes he has been taking (Psyche for Success and his computer class) retired this year. We will miss them both. They were close to Jess before his accident and have been wonderful to accept him in their classes. Every year the kids in the Psyche class have written a note to Jess at the end of the year. It would bring tears to your eyes to read what they say. I am saving them so Jess can read them all one of these days.

We made it through the holidays (they are always tough). This year at Christmas we had Grandma, Grandpa, Joey, Jamie and Jahara here so it was fun to have little Jahara (3) brightening up our Christmas morning. We even made our traditional popcorn balls.

The New Year brought us a new caregiver, Brandie. She followed me around for two weeks and then we flew my sister in law Jenn (who is an RN) out from Cleveland to take care of Jess while we sat in a courtroom for three weeks. Brandie worked side by side with her and became very comfortable with taking care of Jess. She has been an awesome addition to our family. She drives over two hours one way every week from Mackay, Idaho to spend 3 days with us and she spends the night with her mom and family. February and March is when the trial began but I will talk about that later. And then on March 29th my dad (89) had a bad stroke. On April 1st my mom & dad were married 69 years.

Mom and I, with the help of Hospice, kept him home, brought in a hospital bed and sat by his side for 9 days. Chris, Brandie and Amanda had to take care of Jess while I attended to dad's needs. After 5 nights with no sleep we finally found a wonderful man, who was actually a doctor and does volunteer work for the Senior Connection, came and sat with dad for two nights so mom and I could get some sleep. Dad passed away on April 6th at 11:25 a.m. We (mom, one of my best friends and I) were at his side. We all miss him so much. My mom still feels him sleeping next to her. I walk by their room and can't get used to him not being in his chair.

And now it's summer. Brandie is doing an awesome job of keeping Jess busy. Amanda has left us to relax for the summer and to pursue her nursing degree in the fall. I am trying to get Jess in to the Elks Rehab Center in Boise for two weeks so we can get new ideas and make sure we are on the right track with therapy. Jess needs another swallow evaluation. He is eating pureed food quite well so I want to move to the next step. Mom and I are working everyday with his moaning to turn it into words. His eyes are much better. He now can look past midline and to the right. He is looking up and down and I think we need to get him onto some new assistive technology. One disadvantage of living in this beautiful rural setting is the lack of expertise in brain injury so as usual I am not content to just sit still. I will not rest until I know that I haven't missed something. Thanks for checking in...I'll be back!