Funny Story

I just had to share this story ~ last night, Randy and I were lying in bed reading and our two dogs were laying at our feet. Randy put his book down and went in the other room to grab something. He then went over to our sliding glass door and opened it. I then heard him whistle and call the dogs to come in. Both dogs looked up at me like "what is he doing"?He had let them in from outside about 10 or so minutes earlier. I just shrugged my shoulders, and they both jumped off the bed and ran in to him. When he heard their feet pitter pattering on our hard wood floor, he just started to laugh. The funny thing is that this is an almost nightly occurrence around our house lately. The dogs can be right at his feet and he will go over to the door to let them in. I love that he can laugh at himself and he doesn't get mad that I laugh at him!

Today, we had a good day. Randy didn't sleep well at all last night. He has tremors and quite often they keep him awake. I think he finally went to bed around 5 am this morning. I didn't sleep that well because he wasn't in there. So when the alarm went off for us to get up for church, neither of us could get up. I had thought that Cass would come encourage us to get up, but she wasn't up either. She normally gets up early on the weekends, but yesterday, she had gone to Portland with a friend of hers and hadn't gotten home till after 10 pm. So we were all exhausted and almost didn't get up time to get to church. We missed most of the singing, but we made it!

After church, Cass went and hung out with her friend while Randy and I went to a barbecue that was put on my the leaders of the brain injury support group that we like to attend. We haven't been to that group in the last two months. I didn't realize how much I missed being around some of those people until today. It was a beautiful day for a barbecue! It was held at the group leaders house. Their backyard is at a slope, but they made it into a little park area. It even has a stream that comes down the slope into a little pond with fish in it. They have a stone at the base that says "Kent's park" (Kent is the group leader that has the head injury). Randy had a little trouble walking around because of the unevenness of the ground. It served as a good reminder that, even though he has improved so much in his walking, we really should carry around the cane for those "just in case" situations like today.

Whistling

Randy and I have given up on the whole mought guard idea for his teeth grinding issue. Every night without fail, in the middle of the night, he ends up taking it out while he is asleep. Max (our Yorkie) usually ends up finding them the next morning. So I have resolved to myself to wear earplugs and then, when he gets so loud I can hear him even with the earplugs on, I make him roll over and face the other direction. Last night, though, Randy must have subconciously decided he wanted to be extra annoying. Not only did he very loudly grind his teeth throughout the night, but he also began whistling. I pulled my ear plugs out and turned over to look at him to make sure he really was asleep (and he most definitely was!). I just looked at him and said "Seriously?!" He is bound and determined to not let me sleep!

We have more good news about Randy's eyes. As I have posted in the past, with the type of double-vision Randy has, prism glasses don't usually work and for Randy they haven't yet. However, last night, he used them to read and found that they were giving him single vision at some distances. Things that were really close and things that were far away still were seen as two, but when looking at me (I was sitting right next to him) and looking at Daisy (who was lying next to Randy's knee), he saw only one of us. This is great. This means that healing is going on in there. We fully expect his double-vision to be healed.

Today, Randy went down to Ballys and worked out in their pool for awhile. he is going to make it part of his regular routine. He does great when working on mental exercises, but struggles to make himself consistently work on his physical needs. Randy has always been like that ~ he is a book guy, loves learning. But he said he felt really good after his workout today. He then hung out in their sauna for awhile and he was left feeling really good after that.

SSI

We got a response from SSI today. They denied our claim. Their reasoning was that, from all of the reports they received from the various doctors, they believe that Randy will be able to return to some form of work before the 1 year mark of his accident, making him inelligible for the benefit. We weren't surprised with their response. Randy has started the process of returning to work. I had wanted him to wait until after the summer, thinking that he could go over and hang out with his dad on the orchard and allow his body a little more time to heal. I don't feel completely confident that he is quite ready to go back.

Randy sent me an email today that I wanted to share. A coworker of his sent him a book called "Health Food: a daily guide to spiritual nourishment for the soul". I have opened the book often and have found great inspiration from it. Today was Randy's first day every opening the book and reading it. He said what he read today adjusted his thinking. In the reading, it talks of a man who asked a christian couple if, when they went to the altar to be saved, they prayed for faith that God would save them. The couple responded that they had not. In going to the altar, they had faith and knew that they would be saved. In the same thinking, why pray that God would give you faith to be healed. Just as you believe that you will be saved, believe that you will be healed.

Dr Baxstrom Visit

Randy had an appointment with Dr Baxstrom this morning. As I was driving to work, I had the realization that it would be the first time that he would be driving their all by himself. The times that I have driven him, he had never quite remembered where to turn. I called him and he assured me that he knew how to get there. He said he knew the back way. Baxstrom's office is by a mall in Federal Way and as long as Randy could find his way to the mall, I knew he would be fine. Still feeling a little uneasy, I told him to call me if he needed my help. As I pulled in to work, I happen to look down at my cell phone and saw that I had two missed calls from him ~ I hadn't heard my cell phone go off. When I called him, he said he had found his way to the mall, but couldn't quite figure out which direction it was from there. I said "So you are by the mall in Federal Way?". He paused for a moment and then laughed. He had gone to the SuperMall in Auburn. He had remembered it was by a mall but got the wrong mall! I ended up getting him the address as soon as I got into work. He pulled over and put the address in his GPS system and was finally able to find his way there. Thank God for GPS systems!!

Dr Baxstrom gave Randy some good news about his eyes ~ they are 20/20 vision. It seems the eye drops Randy was given in February worked and stopped the spasms that were going on, giving him the nearsightedness. This is great news! Now we need prayer that the nerves that are causing his double vision will be healed.

Amazing Weekend

We had an amazing weekend. Randy and I went to “A Weekend to Remember” seminar put on by Family Life. We had such a great time. I believe there were close to 600 people there and it was a variety of people. There were those who were engaged, those who were recently married, those who had been married awhile, those who were on their 2nd or so marriage, and even those who had been married over 50 years. During the weekend, they would have speakers talk about various subjects and then they would have “projects” that you and your spouse were to work on together on. Randy and I worked very well together throughout the projects and came up with a lot of changes that we want to implement in our lives, both as individuals and as a couple. It was a great seminar and we highly recommend it!

We went with a group of 4 other couples from our church. I think we were the only ones that went to every session from start to finish. We took notes on things that really spoke to us individually and then shared them together. We enjoyed being with the others and getting to know the other couples ~ most of them we see in passing and will occasionally say hi to as church, but have never really had conversations with. It was nice to get a chance to talk more in-depth with them. I thought it was kind of interesting that all of us from that church that decided to go to this conference were all on our 2nd marriages. The only difference was that Randy and I just happen to remarry the same person we had divorced! Our first marriage lasted 4 years. Come this September, we will be hitting our 5th anniversary for this marriage.

During our first marriage, through our divorce, and throughout a lot of this second marriage, God has not been our focus. Together, we are learning and growing. I think Randy said it best in a little note he wrote in his workbook from the seminar “I’m also really thankful God brought us back together even when we were not paying attention to God”.

Through reading this sentence, I am reminded that I married a great man.

Neurology Visit

Yesterday, Randy had a follow up visit with the Neurologist at Harborivew. The doctor was amazed as Randy's progress since his last visit. The intern mentioned that more physical exercise would help Randy continue improvement from this point. That is something that Randy and I have been discussing a lot lately. I got him that membershit to Bally's, but he hasn't utlized it yet. He and I will be coming up with a schedule for him to do throughout the week that will include going to Bally's at least twice. Randy has also contacted his previous Physical Therapist to do a "check-up" appointment to see if she can recommend some specific exercises he can do at this point to continue working on his balance and improving his strength in his left side.

The doctor did recommend that Randy get with his primary care physician and discuss uping his dosage of Gabapentin. Randy's PCP had just upped it in February, but, according to the Neurologist, the dosage Randy is taking is still a relatively low dose. The doctor said that upping that medication might also help Randy with his tremors, which would be great!

This weekend, Randy and I are getting some time together, which I am very excited about. We get to attend a marriage seminar up in Bellevue. Randy's mom is coming to stay at our house to take care of Cass and our menagerie. I am excited to have a chance to get away for a bit.

Last Few Days

Friday, Randy went back to the doctor. He saw a commerical for restless leg syndrome and felt that the symptoms matched what he has been feeling when trying to go to sleep. I think what he is feeling is his nerves going through the healing process. Since we couldn't afford the sleeping medication the doctor had prescribed, Randy decided to see if medication for restless leg syndrome would help. The doctor said it would take a few days to get into his system, but Randy says he is already feeling some difference in his leg.

Unfortunately, it dos not stop the teeth grinding. I have ear plugs, but many times Randy sticks his mouth right next to my ears so I can still hear it. I think he is doing it to spite me!

Today, Randy went down to the Boeing Employee Flight Association to check out volunteer opportunities. Unfortunately, right now the only time slot they had didn't work with getting Cass from school.

Rough Day

Randy is coming home this evening. His dad is flying out of Seattle tonight so he is driving Randy over here. Randy said he had a good time getting away and hanging out on the orchard, but he was ready to head home. Cass will be staying through Sunday. She has always loved it over there. It has been nice having the house to myself even though I didn’t do anything different than if they had been here, but I am ready for them to come back.

Today has been a bit of a rough day. Just a little background ~ 2 years ago, the company I worked for (Western Wireless), merged with Alltel. The transition was hard on those who had been with Western for a while because Western was a very employee oriented company. The two companies had very different cultures. I, as a supervisor, struggled a bit with going from a company that allowed me to structure my coaching and mentoring to the individual need to a company that micro-manages all employees. I am not saying micromanaging is a bad thing, I believe some people need that and others cannot work in that type of an environment. After Randy’s accident, I began looking at opportunities outside of the company, but then realized that with our current situation I could not go down in pay at all. Being with the company for 8 years, I have established myself there. So I made the decision to stay and made the decision that I needed to find away to balance out my coaching style with the Alltel micromanaging way. I have come to really like it there. I still don’t like the company, but I have really become involved with my employees and I have loved working with them to improve their performances and to help them find the joy in their job. Recently, we did a bid for new shifts and employees had the option to try to get different shifts with different supervisors. Almost all of my employees stayed with me ~ some even taking shifts they didn’t necessarily like. That meant a lot to me and showed me how far I have come as a leader.

Unfortunately, we got the news today that Alltel will be closing down our call center. There was no offering of relocating to any of their other call centers (not that we could take that because we would have too much here to leave behind). I will be out of a job as of October 1st. For those of you out there who believe in prayer, please pray for us, that I will have wisdom in knowing what to do to prepare for this.

Off to Yakima

Randy and Cass left for Yakima today with Randy's mom. It feels a little strange having the house to myself. I am not quite sure what to do with myself! When I talked to him this evening, he said he made the trip very well. He didn't have any issues with car sickness because he used one of the sea sickness patches.

Randy has having issues sleeping lately. He was doing very good for a while, but the last few nights, he hasn't been able to fall asleep. Last night, he ended up getting up for awhile because he didn't want to keep me awake. When he came back to lie down, he still couldn't lie still so he slept in Cass's bed (she was in the guest bedroom sleeping with Randy's mom). I am hoping he can stablize his sleeping habits again because he doesn't function that well without sleep.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a great Easter! Ours was pretty quiet, much to Cass's disappointment. We did make it to church and went to dinner at a diner Randy really likes in Black Diamond ~ his parents got us an Easter gift certificate there. My back has been giving me some issues the last few days, so Randy was in charge of being the easter bunny and hiding eggs. Cassandra had the brilliant foresight of using plastic eggs instead of coloring eggs and using them as we normally do. It turned out to be a brilliant idea since we cannot find two of the eggs and Randy has absolutely no clue where he could have hidden them.

This evening, we took dinner to Zack's family (the kid who suffered a head injury in a football game). The mom quite her job and takes care of Zack because they didn't like any of the alternatives. It has been 6 months since Zack's accident. He hasn't talked yet. The mom said they keep his cell phone active and play his voice mail message on it sometimes to hear his voice. It is very apparent that Zack can understand what is going on around him, but he just can't respond. He has had a series of strokes. Seeing Zack made me very thankful for the speed of Randy's recovery. At six months, Randy was up walking around and able to communicate at that stage.

Last Couple of Days

Well, Georgie didn't make it through even that first night. We were all very sorry to lose her ~ she was a very well loved Guinea Pig. Cass has decided to wait a little while before trying to get any other pets, which I think is very wise! Losing 2 of her pets within just a few months has been a bit hard on her. None of us got much sleep that first night after taking her to the vet. For Cass and I, functioning without much sleep, though not fun, we got through the next day. However, for Randy, when he doesn't get much sleep it seems to wreak havoc on his whole system. For the next day, his balance was off so he had a harder time walking and he had a very difficult time processing information ~ sometimes things had to be explained a few times before he understood. Things that would have a negative affect on anyone (lack of sleep, poor diet, etc), seem to have an amplified negative affect on those in the recovery process for head injury.

And for the first time in quite a while, he was very difficult to wake up! When I left, I thought I had succeeded in finally get him awake, but then I found out later that as soon as I walked out the door, he sat back down and was right back to snoozing. Thankfully, Cass has been walking to school with our neighbor, who works in the school office, and when Cass didn't show up to her house on time, she came over and found them both sleeping!

Georgie

We finally have our dishwasher back working. Everytime that our neighbor came over to help, Randy wasn't here. Yesterday, Randy started heading out again and I told him that I could not handle having a dishwasher sitting in the middle of my kitchen and not having access to the kitchen sink. Randy went in there and messed with the dishwasher until he, by himself, was able to figure out what exactly was wrong with it. He went to Home Depot, got the little part and all is well now! One funny thing, though, was that Randy had thought he had lost one of the pipes for the sink. He bought one from McClendon's and found it didn't fit. He then bought one from Home Depot and found it didn't fit either. He then got to really looking at the pipes and realized that there was no pipe missing ~ he had just not connected them back up. So, the pipes were right in front of them the entire time! I found it very funny.

On a sad note, our Guinea Pig, Georgie is very sick. Every night, when I go into tuck Cass in, I always talk to Georgie. I realized that the last few days, she really hasn't responded ~ she just sat in her house. Last night, she wasn't inside the house, but she didn't move or really respond to me. I opened the cage and went to pet her and found she was incredibly skinny. You couldn't tell by looking at her, though, because of all of her hair. She seemed very lethargic. Randy thought she was just very dehydrated because we have a very hard time keeping her water bottle up ~ we are constantly picking it up from the ground. We filled her water up and filled up her food dish. Both were completely full tonight when I checked on her. We took her to the only Animal Hospital in our area that will deal with Guinea Pigs. The doctor said she almost died during his examination. He thinks she has some type of infection, but isn't sure. Cass is the one that takes care of her so we didn't have many clues ~ Cass doesn't make it a normal practice of looking at Georgie's droppings or things such as that. The vet didn't give Georgie much hope of making it through this because she has lost so much weight and has gone into shock, but we decided we needed to give her a shot at living, so we opted to allow them to treat her.

I know people that know us must think we are absolutely crazy! 3 or so years ago, when Cass's hamster's eye popped out, we opted to have surgery to remove the eye and try to save him only to have him die a few hours after the surgery. But we have really tried to teach Cass that when you take an animal into your home you are responsible for its life and should do all you can to take care of it. That, and we get attached to our animals! Georgie is very easy to love ~ she has such a sweet personality for a Guinea Pig. So we are a little crazy!

Our Week

Today, I truly sympathize with what my sister had to endure for quite a while. For a long time, she had to wash her dishes in her tub because their kitchen was a “work that wasn’t having any progress”. I don’t know how she did it for as long as she did. We have hit 1 week of not having a dishwasher or having access to our kitchen sink. Something broke on the dishwasher, where it connects to the water, and Randy hasn’t been able to fix it. Right now, with the eye drops he is taking, his near sight is incredibly bad, so he isn’t really able to see what needs to be fixed. He has asked the neighbor to come over and help, but the nights that the neighbor has been available, Randy isn’t here and the nights that Randy is here the neighbor has stuff going on. We have been trying to use paper plates, but it isn’t always feasible. We finally broke down and washed the dishes in the bathtub. Not fun!

Randy and I get a chance to help out another family that is dealing with head injury and we are excited for the opportunity. For those that live here in the Puget Sound area, I am sure you heard of the kid that suffered a hit in a football game this last October that resulted in a head injury. One lady has kind of adopted the family and she contacted 4 churches in our area to get people to volunteer to help out the parents with food or other little things they need. Randy and I asked to be put on the list to fill in for the “food committee”. They have people sign up to bring the parents dinner 1 night a month. The boy is an only child and he currently has a feeding tube in and cannot eat solid foods. We signed up to fill in for anyone on the food committee that can’t bring dinner on their given night. Currently, the boy is back in the hospital due to high fevers from infections, but before that his mom took care of him at home while the father works full time. They flew in a nurse from Cuba to help out as well. We are looking forward to meeting them and getting to help out in any way that we able to right now.

Last Couple of Days

Friday was the court date. Randy and I didn't go because the attorney felt it wasn't necessary. In talking to the attorney after the hearing, it sounded as though the judge was really wanting to go with the dismissal. Our attorney said the judge was having a hard time corralating the truck being in the carpool lane illegally with the causation of Randy's injuries. However, she didn't just dismiss it. She gave our attorney 60 days to answer some questions and come up with a way to essentially convince her this case shouldn't be dismissed. It doesn't sound too good for us anyway about it. If a judge is having a hard time with seeing the truck as liable, I think a jury would have just as hard (if not harder) of a time saying they are liable and owe us anything.

Despite the little letdown with the court thing, the three of us (Randy, Cass and I) all went out to dinner and had a great time. Some of my coworkers had gotten us a gift certificate to a very nice Italian restaurant in Bellevue. We decided it was about time we finally used it! We had such a nice dinner. They were incredibly busy, but we were talking so much we didn't even realize how much time had passed waiting for our food. Our waiter felt bad, though, so he gave us free brushetta and free dessert. The food was absolutely amazing.

Today, none of us have felt well, so we didn't do a whole lot. Randy did get up early and hang out with a friend, which he greatly enjoyed. The rest of the day, though, we pretty much took it easy. We did have a little scare with one of our dogs. We were all in the living room and she was in our bedroom and she just started this awful sounding howling. She sounded like something was terribly wrong. I couldn't bear to go in there and see what was causing her so much pain, so Randy ran in there and then closed the door. We aren't positive what happened, but the best we can figure is that she somehow got caught up in the cord to one of our lamps that is beside our bed and, in trying to get away from it, she bit into the cord, which must have shocked her. I am sure it was quite painful and she ended up causing quite a mess, but thankfully she seems to be okay from it.

Randy's Eyes

Yesterday, Randy and I went up to Seattle to the UW to see the Opthamalogist that he normally sees at Harborview. He wanted to see Randy at the UW because his assistant there is trained on getting the necessary measurments for the possibility of surgery down the road. The assistant noted that it seems that Randy's brain is trying to bring things back to normal, but the improvements have not been significant enough that they believe surgery will not be necessary. With Randy's double vision, not only does he see two of things, but one of the images he sees is torqued. That is what the surgery would help correct.

The assistant did a variety of tests on Randy that test where his eyes are at now in order to get a baseline to see if any improvements are made over the next few months. The picture is one of the tests that was done. These glasses that Randy is wearing test how far off the left and rght eye are from each other ~ Randy had to line up two lines in each lens so that it was equal. I believe we go back in 4 months. If any improvements have been made, then they will be our new baseline and we will wait a few more months to go back for more testing. Once lilttle to no improvement has been made, we will begin discussing surgery or any other options we might have at that point.

9 Months Today

Today is the 9 month mark from the accident. There is some sadness today. Last night Randy saw something on the news that mentioned Boeing's 787 ~ the program he was working on. He felt sad that he has missed so much of working on that. But mostly, we felt that today was a day of celebration. We have seen so many miracles within the last 9 months. Though we have gone through a devastating, life changing event, we have been so blessed throughout this. We are better people because of this. Our marriage is stronger because of this. I am a better supervisor at work. Ever part of my life has gone through a change and it has been so positive.

Randy has come so far. 9 months ago, I wasn't sure he was going to make it through the night. Today, his life is reminder that God is with us and it is a reminder of His strength, His mercy, and His love.

First Movie

Yesterday, Randy went to his first movie at a theater since the accident. When we watch movies at home, he loses interest part way through the movie and he has to get up and do something which then causes him to forget some of the things that have happened, so he has a hard time following the movie from beginning to end. With being in the theater and not having a pause button, Randy did quite well. He sat through the entire movie. Ironically, the movie was about a woman whose husband was in a car accident. I was a little worried that Randy would talk through the movie, which he does quite regularly, but he did okay (partly, I think, because I told him at the beginning of the movie that I really wanted to hear the movie). He actually talks quite a bit since the accident. It reminds me of when Cass was younger and was "Miss Chatty", talking nonstop and Randy and I would get to the point that we would ask he to play the quiet game. I have found that the quiet game doesn't work for Randy though :-)

Today, he went out to lunch with a guy he met that suffered a TBI while serving in the war a few years ago. Randy had done some research a few months ago and came across an article from NPR (National Public Radio) that called TBIs the unwritten cost of the war. A fact that he has told this gentleman quite a few times!

Great Day!

Randy had a great day today! He drove himself to a therapy class he is in. It is about 20 minutes from the house. He got out of there in time to come home and pick Cass up from school. This week is Parent/Teacher conference so Cass got out early. Cass then went over to a friend's house to work on a school project that is due this Thurdsday. Randy drove himself to where he use to work in Renton. Some former coworkers had a surprise appreciation thing for Randy's former boss and they had invited Randy to attend. He was so excited to see everyone and get a chance to visit for a bit.

Randy then drove himself to the chiropractor and then stopped and grabbed us dinner. A very big day for him indeed! I, of course, was very nervous about him driving. Before he left anyplace and right when we arrived at the next place, he had to call me. He did great!

Driving

Randy did some more driving today. His friend Brandon raod with him for awhile to give his opinion on Randy's driving. He had the same feedback that I did ~ night driving and freeway driving aren't good ideas now. Randy did some driving by himself as well today. He made it home safely. He was so excited and so proud of himself.

Time Changes

With the "spring forward", we all found it very difficult to get up this morning. We made it up barely in time to get to church. After church, I had to lie down to catch up on missed sleep throughout the last week. Cass worked on cleaning her room while Randy played around with his GPS system. It was a nice, relaxing day. Randy and I have done a lot of driving around the neighborhood and he has done an excellent job, so he took the car by himself down to the Chevron station by our house (no major roads are gone on to get there, all are 25 mph roads). He made it there and back safely.

This evening, we went over to the house of some people in the church. We hadn't really known them before tonight. They wanted to get to know us so they invited us over for dinner. We had a very nice time. The wife and I set up some time for me to go out to dinner with her and some other women on occassion, which I think will be very nice. As Randy has improved, I think it is important for me to get out on occassion and have time away from the house. I am excited!