Monday Night

Busy day today, for all concerned. First of all my day (since I am really the one your interested in). The very first nurse that we had the first night was named Sue. Sue's husband (Eric) is a professional photographer and offered to do a shoot with the kids for free. So, this morning we packed up the family and headed over to the studio. Karen did a great job of picking outfits for the three and the kids did a great job of just being adorable. Sawyer was on his best behavior and made his daddy proud. Eric did a great job of getting awesome poses out of the kids and we are really looking forward to seeing the prints.

I took everyone back home and then headed down to the hospital. Over the lunch hour I had a leader meeting for church with Rob and Mark. It's been a crazy month for the church and we had a lot to talk about. Most of it good, however, some of you will be getting a visit soon. We almost had to cancel our meeting as Mark had to go to his Dr's office to get a few staples. The story is he dropped a tool on his head, but I think Dawn took a swipe at him and he doesn't want to admit it. After the meeting we had a good time of prayer over Katie.

I stayed at the hospital for a few hours and then headed home as I had to go to a meeting at Aubree's school for all kindergartners parents. After the meeting I went home, had a bite to eat, tucked the girls in bed, and headed outside to mow the lawn.

I say all this in an effort to make an elaborate excuse for not getting the post up sooner. I pray that you fall for it and feel deep sorrow for me. Thank you for your support.

Now to Katie. A lot of what happened today was relayed to me by Sue, though I did some good interactions with her this afternoon. Again, no real changes on the medical front other than a few minor developments. First of all, the Infectious Disease Dr's are back, and this time they found something. Katie has a bladder infection, which is pretty much guaranteed when you have a catheter for a month. So, the Dr prescribed some antibiotics and ordered that the catheter to come out. This is a good development and Katie is now able to control these functions and starting tomorrow should be able to get out of bed to go.

The swelling in Katie's leg is basically all gone, and the nurses are very excited about the clots being gone. There was no real reason for Katie not to be able to walk today other than the Dr being out of town.

This morning the Speech Pathologist was asking Katie a bunch of questions and she was answering them very easily. We've asked her where she lives a number of times and she has never been able to get it right, but today she spit it out without thinking. So, we continue to make big gains on the mental front.

However we did have some regression today. Up to this point Katie has been very nice for the most part, and whenever she was making fun of someone, there was always a smile to follow it up letting you know she was kidding. The morning was good, but by this afternoon things went South. Katie was mad that she couldn't get out of bed. I told her that we need the Dr to approve it and he was gone. She thought she should be able to get out of bed and go and see the Dr. She was also not happy with all of the tubes hooked up to her and was trying to pull them out. I told her about getting the pictures taken and she was mad that I didn't take her. I tried to explain to her that she is in the hospital and couldn't go. At this point, her mom asked her if she knew what hospital she was in. Katie's response was to tell Sue that she is Number One (and not the nice way). I finally got tired of arguing with Katie and I ended up telling her that I did ask her if she wanted to go to the pictures, but she didn't want to. "That's so much bull," was her response. There was a lot more, but I think you get the point.

While that's not the Katie that we know, it's not unexpected and we've had numerous Dr's tell us that with brain injuries things will come out of her mouth that will surprise us. The injury will accentuate certain aspects of her personality beyond what she would normally show.

All in all it was a very good day and Katie is making big strides cognitatively, now on the the PT!