Wildfires!

There is so much to tell you I don't know where to begin. At about 7:30 p.m. this evening they just announced another evacuation of over 1,000 people in our mid valley. A fire started from lightening over a week ago and we now have over 1200 fire fighters trying to keep up with it. We had strong winds today and are expecting more tonight. It is so smoky here and everyone is very worried. We have many friends that have had to leave their homes. The house Chris was doing a remodel on was also evacuated so he is out of work temporarily. We are quite a few miles south of the fire but we are watching what is happening very closely. Here is the website we are watching: www.blainecounty.org

Jess, Brandie, my mom and I took Jess to Boise on Tuesday night. We stayed with Jamie and Jahara and they took such good care of us. We had a van packed full of "stuff". It is not easy to take Jess out of his comfort zone. The first night he and I only got a couple hours of sleep. I don't know what I would have done without Brandie helping me to get Jess to all of our appointments. I sure appreciated her willingness to go with us.

We had an appointment with the Elks rehab doctor on Wednesday morning. She has not seen Jess for 3 years. She complemented us on how well Jess looked and on all of the things we were doing with him. We talked about stem cells, drugs and the brain stimulation at the Cleveland Clinic. She warned us not to go to China for stem cells but hopes like all of us that our country will realize the importance of doing more research here as soon as possible. She did think we should pursue the brain stimulation but warned there could be risks. (Jess is still on the list to be evaluated for the procedure.) She also told me to check into the University of Pittsburg because they seem to be on the cutting edge of new brain injury research.

We had an appointment later with an oral surgeon to see about having Jess' wisdom teeth removed. He was a wonderful doctor that I actually found on the internet. He had read all of the info I sent and said he was going to see if he could do the surgery up here at our hospital. I couldn't believe he was willing to travel almost 3 hours to remove Jess' wisdom teeth! There are wonderful people in this world. He said they would have to watch him carefully for aspiration so he thought it would be better for us to keep him in the hospital over night so they could watch him closely. The only problem now is they have evacuated everyone near the hospital because of the fire.

We also met the next day with all of the therapists at the Elks Rehab Hospital. They evaluated Jess. I was hoping they could give us some miracle to bring Jess back but they just said we were doing more than anyone they had seen in our situation. They did have some suggestions and a contact for me to someone in Montana that is very good with communication devices that might be able to help us find a better way to communicate with Jess. The doctor and therapists will get together next week to discuss recommendations for us and will conference call us sometime next week.

We also visted the place where we purchased Jess' wheelchair and ordered a new seat and some worn parts on his chair. I took the van in to have the wheelchair lift looked at and they made some minor adjustments. It was a very busy two days.

We have all been busy getting petitions signed for People Safe in Rollovers. If you have any petitions to get to Paula please send them to reach California before she leaves for Washington D.C. on September 4th. She was able to get a billboard company in Boise to put a billboard up in Jess' honor and I think we almost have the $1,500 to purchase the vinyl billboard. Thank you to everyone for participating in this critical event. Paula did an interview with a radio station regarding the issue of safer roofs on our vehicles. The link is here. It is eye opening!

School is suppose to start Monday but I have a feeling it will be postponed until the fires calm down. It will be Jess' last year to be around his peers. He lights up when he is around friends his age. I don't know what we will do after this year. One day at a time! Pray for our fire fighters and everyone's safety. Mother Nature is very angry at us I think. There is a lot of tragedy in our world right now. We need to help change the energy!