Friday Afternoon

You can see the rod they drove down through his Tibia to attempt to reconnect like 10 or 15 broken pieces. You can also see that his fibula is broken. There are screws at the top below the knee which you can’t see, and there are screws above the ankle which you can see. They hold the rod in place. This XRay was taken yesterday. Imagine what his leg looked like the night of the accident. Shattered.

His right leg was jacked up too, but not as bad. No break in the fubula, and only two major break areas of the right tibia.

You should see his left arm around his elbow. Remember, he is left-handed. We are hoping everything on the left hand returns to normal. Well, as normal as it can become again. Here’s a quote from the doctor yesterday about his left arm around the elbow – “It was shattered into about 50 pieces.”

I’m not kidding, and he wasn’t either. It has enough hardware in it now to overwhelm the guy who stocks screws and nuts and bolts at Lowe’s. Airport metal detector watch out! Good thing Dad has the “clear” pass. He’s gonna make that little metal detecting wand happy, though.

Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. It was a full day.

I got to Dad’s a little before 7:00 in the morning. Because of his appointment with the Ortho doctor, therapy was supposed to come around 7:30. So, Dad wanted breakfast early. He got it – Tall Decaf, Starbucks “Perfect Oatmeal” (which hasn’t been perfect – too thick), and some of his peach yogurt we had in the fridge at the Skilled Nursing Facility. Good stuff, and he was good and ready to work out by 7:30. They got there at 8:10 to roll him down.

While he was in therapy, I folded clothes and straightened his room. I had washed all his conversation-starting pajamas and shirts the night before. When he returned, the wheelchair-van driver followed shortly, and we headed downstairs to load up.

Dad’s appointment was at 10. We got done about 1:30. Because he had been transferred from University Hospital to Ochsner, the new doctors had to talk with us a while to get a full picture of Dad’s medical history since the accident. You should have seen the chart they read through. Longer than those posts that I write on Caring Bridge.

When they got a good picture of what was going on, lots of XRays were ordered. I mean a lot. I sat in the waiting room outside of the XRay room for almost an hour. Good conversation, though, with a couple who had been married for 53 years. They were saddened to hear about the accident. I was overjoyed to witness their love and friendship with one another. 53 years! Jen – I hope all the New Orleans food I ate growing up allows me to live long enough to see 53 years with you.

They called me in when Dad was done. They needed me to help them get him back off the XRay table. I lifted his upper body, while they lifted his legs, and we sat him back in his wheelchair.

He was shivering by the time we got him back to the room to wait for the doctor. He was cold. And worried, too. He had told me earlier in the morning that he was concerned about what they were going to say about his legs. He was concerned about long-term effects. The doctor walked in to give us the news.

It was encouraging. We looked at the break in his neck first. The doctor said it looked like it was healing to him, but he wanted to refer him to a spine doctor. He still has to wear the neck-collar until then, at least. Bummer.

Then, he showed us the pictures of his arm. That’s when he commented on Dad’s elbow area. He warned Dad to be focused on working his range of motion and strength in that joint as tolerated. He didn’t want all of those bone chips and pieces to calcify together and limit his joint motion. They would heal and allow him pretty normal motion if he kept the joint moving.

Then he gave us the news on his left wrist – the one they have been saying he would need surgery on. NO SURGERY!!! The doctor said that he thought it would heal fine without surgery. It still had a lot of healing to do, but if Dad was careful and kept the splint on it, it should be good. Dad was pleased. Erik is hopeful that he will be able to be as left-handed as he was before the accident, and Dad’s doctor assured us that he thought Dad would be.

The legs came next. Left leg first. You see the picture. The doctor told him it was not well enough yet to hold weight. He wanted it to be supported and stabilized even more, so he gave him a big boot to wear on the left leg. It’s real heavy and cumbersome, but Dad is up to anything if it will help him walk again. He is a very determined guy if you didn’t know. Stubborn, too. That works in his favor. The therapists confirm it.

The right leg, though, the doctor said was healing well. He told Dad he could bear weight on it as tolerated. That’s HUGE, because it meant that Dad could start working at rebuilding his leg strength so he could move toward beginning full rehab. He was pleased and anxious all at the same time. He knows it will be real hard work. He is in his first session as I am writing this to you. Erik will let you know how it goes over the weekend.

Overall it was a great appointment. Erik arrived in town around 1:00 and picked up lunch for us. He was going to meet us back in Dad’s room with po-boys from Crabby Jacks, a sister restaurant of Jacques-Imos. It is on Jefferson Hwy. It is a little hole-in-the-wall extraordinaire. I am giving you all this detail, so that when you are in town and in the mood for some fried green tomatoes and an oyster po-boy and a roast beef po-boy and a Barq’s Root Beer, you can stop there. Unreal.

Dad was pleased.

We ate with Dad, showed Erik the XRays, got Dad settled for a nap, and Erik and I headed across the Huey P to see Mom.

Her nurse had called right before we left. She wanted to let us know that Mom’s therapy session had gone really well, and, that they had tried the Passy Muir Valve to begin weaning her off the tracheotomy. It had gone well!!! Her SATS didn’t drop, and she breathed well. She even made actual noises through her vocal cords when she coughed. No talking yet, but that will come.

We arrived, and the Respiratory Therapist put the valve back on so we could try to get Mom to talk. She made coughing noises again. She did slip out a “mmm-uhhh” sound, but no talking. And we tried everything.

We asked her to tell us our names. We asked her to count to ten. We asked her to say her ABC’s. I asked her to belch them, in case that would be enticing. It wasn’t. Probably would have been gross, even. We asked her to say her grandkids’ names. We asked her to recite the Gettysburg address. Nothing worked!!! She didn’t talk. Just doesn’t feel comfortable yet with it, I guess. It will come, the therapist assured us.

She did do something that meant a lot to Erik. I had gotten her to wink at Dad the day before. I asked her to wink at Erik. SHE DID!!! And he tried to trick her asking her if Abby was his child. She shook her head. “Is she Jay’s kid, Mom?” She nodded. She’s so smart.

Every little victory matters, as we take this month-by-month for the long haul.

After an amazing dinner with Don and Trisha Richard at Bistro Daisy on Magazine, and after Dad ate his crawfish ravioli take-out from there, Erik and Dad and I sat in his room and watched a movie. I set up his laptop where we all could see it, and we watched “The Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Great movie. We highly recommend it, especially the scene about Kopi Luwak coffee. You might even laugh until you cry.

After the movie, I told Erik and Dad something I am sharing with you, not because I want you to think we are circumstantially sentimental, but only because I hope you will do it, too. I asked them, “Will yall commit to something? As we move forward, let’s keep doing it together. Let’s do it with no regrets.”

They agreed. Doing life together with family and friends is what matters. Experiencing the fullness of life matters, and it is only truly full when we experience it together. I love my wife and kids and brother and sister-in-law and nephews and Mom and Dad and friends. I am thankful for how we all have walked together so closely in life, and I am grateful for how all of you have walked with us through this. And there will be more life yet to live abundantly together. So, let’s do it. And let’s not require random accidents to be necessary as reminders of how precious life is.

Check out this video and website our friend, Tom, shared with Dad and me the other day. It was recorded in multiple places across the planet over several years and then edited together. A beautiful picture of the beauty of togetherness as we blend together in deep relationship and “stand by” one another through this life.

Following Jesus makes life together the ultimate and makes it everlasting. May you follow Him if you don’t already. It’s more than a religious choice. In fact, it’s no religious choice at all. It’s a choice for life. Abundant life. Life in the now and forever. In relationship with the God who loved us first, and whose love transforms our relationships into the love and togetherness that we can only know in Him.

Love yall. Thankful to be doing life with you in this way. I’ll post at you Monday.
-jason