Truth in Cliches

I have often heard people express "I am so tired I could fall asleep standing up". However, I had never actually seen anyway actually do this.... until last night. Randy has slept very little Thursday night. I think he just had too much on his mind. Right now, work has been very busy for him that I think his racing mind is winning over the new sleep medicine. Then last night (Friday night), I was in his office working on organizing it so of course he had to be in there to "help". I could tell his eyes were getting heavy, but he absolutely refused to go to bed. At one point, he bent down to pick up something he had dropped, but I noticed he wasn't standing back up. When I said his name, he jumped a bit. I asked what he was doing and he sheepishly answered "Meditating?" At that point, I told him we had to stop for the night ~ it was time to get him into bed. As he was getting ready for bed, he kept stopping in the middle of doing things (brushing his teeth, walking into the bedroom, etc) and would seriously just fall asleep standing up.

This morning, he turns to me and says "I don't remember going to bed last night." I answered "That's because you fell asleep before you even got there!"

My Clever Husband

Randy has always been a creative problem solver, which is one of the many things that I admire about him. Today was a great example of that admirable problem solving skill.


When we moved into our house 4 years ago, it came with an ancient chandelier in the dinning room. We have always hated it, but could never justify spending money to get a new one (times that I have priced them, they have been around $200 ~ at least for the ones that we tend to like.) The day after Thanksgiving we generally avoid all stores because we don't like crowds. Well, today, we decided to venture into Home Depot to get some things for our backyard. While there, we came across a nice chandelier that we both liked for only $40, so we grabbed it. I was so excited to get it hung up today.

Randy's left side is still pretty weak, so this wasn't an easy project for him. However, his great problem-solving skills came in handy today. Randy pulled out the tallest tripod he has and used it to hook the piece to while he was working on the wiring. I captured a picture.... what a brilliant man!




Here is a picture of the completed project:




We are trying to find cheap projects we can do around the house that will make the house a little bit nicer. I think this light fixture was a great addition!

Updating

I am sure not many people come here and read this anymore... I rarely update it! One day, if I ever decide to write a book, I am going to kick myself for not keeping up on all that is going on.

Randy continues to improve, though it is a lot slower now than before. He has found some deficits that get in the way of him doing the quality of work he would like to do at work. The biggest issue is his memory ~ it is getting in his way of following through with things. Since I don't work for Boeing, he can't tell me specific of things, which makes it a bit harder for me to help him. However, he and I did sit down and have a brainstorming session of issues and solutions. He was able to give me enough detail in a non detail oriented overview that I was able to provide some solutions to him. Now getting him to use what we came up with is another story.... the follow through is a big issue in all facets of life!

On top of working, Randy has also been doing school. He has done excellent in the class that he is currently taking. It is an online photography class, but it isn't all about taking pictures. He has had quizzes, tests and has had to write a paper. I think he is currently sitting at an A- in the class. That class is almost over and his next class is beginning. There is a cool story with this, but I don't want it to get lost in the middle of a post, so it will have its own post here soon.

I am also pushing Randy into getting back into exercising on a regular basis. Work and school take up so much of his time. But physical exercise is so important to his continued healing. He himself has said that he has seen some slipbacks in his progress and he relates them to lack of sleep and lack of exercise.

With the lack of sleep issue, we are working with our doctor to find a solution to that. Randy went through a sleep study last Saturday night. We will find the results of that this Friday. Now that I am not working, I can take naps every day to make up for the sleep I don't get at night due to Randy's restlessness. But Randy doesn't have the option to take naps. Sometimes he has gone two days since sleeping. I don't know of anyone who functions well without sleep, but it affects Randy so much more. Hopefully, with the sleep study, they can provide us with a workable solution.

Another update ~ Randy and I got to do our first photography job together. We went to Oklahoma and were the photographers at my nieces wedding. It was a lot of fun to work together on.

While we were there in Oklahoma, we were asked to give our testimony to the church that my family attends. They played the DVD I made of Randy and his accident and then invited us up to talk. Though I hate getting up in front of a lot of people, it was a great experience.

Happy National Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Wow! It has been over a month and a half since I have posted anything. Oh, how time flies when you are busy. I have been working hard at school. As soon as a quarter ends at one school I start another at another school. I will have my Associates in Business in just a couple more quarters. I have also been busy starting to look for a job since the doors are closing at my current job at the end of this month.

With Randy, things are continuing to go incredibly well. Since I am not with him while he works, I don’t know how his work performance is, but since he has gone back to work, I have seen so many improvements in him both physically and mentally. He still has days that his short term memory doesn’t function well, but it is usually on the days that he is more tired. It was funny… a couple of weeks ago, I was working on a slideshow presentation for work and was looking for some music to add to it. Randy handed me a cd of his, telling me he thought it would work well. I ended up leaving the cd sitting next to the chair I was sitting in. The next day, Randy sat in that chair, picked up the cd and commented “Oh, this is a good cd. When did you get this?” I looked at him a moment to see if the memory would come out, but it didn’t, so I responded “Yesterday when you handed it to me”.

Last Saturday we met up with some friends for dinner. They commented to me that it seems like Randy’s sense of humor has not only returned, but actually improved. He does a good job of making light of some of his deficits, especially the memory deficit. The restaurant we were at was one that we had eaten at only a couple of weeks prior. When Randy got up to use the restroom, I asked him “Do you remember where the restroom is?” He said “Nope, not a clue”, and walked off, not even waiting for direction. When he came back he said he figured he would eventually find it ~ why ask for directions if he won’t remember them anyway!

The last little update is on how the trial is going. The judge dismissed the case against the company, stating that the truck being over-weight is arguable. Our attorney conferred with other attorneys and told us that it would probably not be to our benefit to appeal. Besides, the appeal process itself would take anywhere from one to two years and if we lost, that would be a lot more expense to us. We also decided not to go after the man who caused the accident. From our initial look, he didn’t have any assets and our attorney said that he would most likely be advised to file bankruptcy anyway. I think Randy had a bit of a hard time letting it go because he wants this guy to understand the consequences of not following the law by not carrying insurance. So the legal side of things is over and the blog is no longer restricted. However, instead of moving it all back to updatesonrandy.blogspot.com, we are leaving it at http://randysjourney.blogspot.com.

Randy is doing an excellent job with continuing to recover. He continues to amaze me. A couple of weeks ago he started taking an online photography class. He works hard at putting in his efforts at work and at school. I think it would be easy for someone to fall into their disability and use that as a crutch, but Randy pushes himself to do more. He is a pretty amazing guy!

Update!

Wow... it has been awhile since I have put out any update. Randy has come so far in his healing that he doesn't require so much of my time and attention, so I was able to go back to school. Between going to school full time and working full time, I don't have a lot of extra time!

Randy is doing amazing. He is now working a full 8 hour day. I was a little worried that he would tire out too much, but he is handling it very well. In the next few weeks he wants to add a bit more to his plate and take a photography class. Prior to the accident, Randy had developed a love of photography. He had taken quite a few classes at the local community college, mostly focusing on black and white photography. He is now branching out into the world of digital photography. He is beginning to drive Cass and I a bit crazy. With the black and white, film was a little expensive so he had to plan out his pictures and he took very few. With digital, he doesn't have to worry about the cost of film, so he is constantly taking our picture. I think we have over 50 alone of just me driving. But I love to see him getting back to the things that he was so passionate about before.

The last few weeks haven't been all work for us. Since Cass had to spend her birthday last year mostly at the hospital, we decided to take her out to have some fun. We headed to Ocean Shores for a few days and had an amazing time! So much so, in fact, that we ended up staying an extra day. I think it was good for the three of us to get away from everything and play for a few days.

Though Randy has come so far, he still has what we jokingly refer to as "brain injur moments". One such example occurred about a week ago. A couple weeks prior to this occurrence, we had purchased a screen door for our front door. Randy hadn't measured the door or anything. He just grabbed the one he thought would fit. Well, it didn't fit. So he took it back the next day. Then, about a week ago, he sends me the following email

"In case you didn't know, I suffered a brain injury in 2006 and have some severe memory deficits, so bare with me. Did we end up purchasing a storm door, if so, where did we put it?"

I just had to laugh! His memory, overall, is getting better. He likes to joke that at least his is better than his father's!

Thankful

Last night, Randy and I watched the Coma documentaries from HBO. In the main documentary, they follow 4 people from just a few weeks after their accidents until 1 or so years after. All 4 have head injuries - two from car accidents, one from a fall from a balcony, and one who was assaulted and thrown from a bridge while in another country.

In the documentary, they talked about the coma stage (which Randy was in for 12 days) and then they talked about the minimally conscious state versus the vegetative state. Randy went from the coma to the minimally conscious state.

The show was heart wrentching. It was hard for me to watch because it reminded me of all we had been through. Also, watching it made us feel so fortunate. At the year mark, everyone was at a different stage.

One person, who was around 19, was taken home by her mom and then brought back 4 months later because she was getting inadequate therapy.

The man who was assaulted was about 19. He was actually at his two year mark during the documentary. They were debating throughout the documentary over whether or not he was in a vegetative statement. At the end of the show, the doctors and therapists were saying he wasn't going to improve. The parents weren't willing to give up yet.

The man who fell off a balcony was finally able to go home after a year

The fourth person had started coming out of his coma, was in a minimally conscious state, seemingly getting better, and then slipped back into the coma and died.

At the time that some of the "better off" people were just starting to walk while in rehab and just starting to make some vast improvements, during that time in Randy's recovery, he was at home walking and doing outpatient therapy. Randy was definitely on the fast track of recovery.

Watching this shore made us both feel so thankful for the miracle of Randy's fast recovery. It also made Randy feel very fortunate for the family and friends that he has. Throughout the show, in seeing what the family went through, Randy was constantly saying "Thank you". He kept saying how thankful he was for all that his family did, all those who visited him, and for all of those that prayed for him.

Catching Up

It's been a bit since I posted last! Life has been a little busy.

Cass is feeling better, which makes me feel better. She felt dizzy for a few days after falling, but that seems to have gone away.

Last weekend we went to Spokane for a family reunion ~ it was Randy's mom's family. They were all very excited to see Randy and many commented on how great he looked. He enjoyed getting to see and visit with everyone, but after awhile, it got to be a bit overwhelming for him so we called it an early night. But by morning, he seemed to be doing better. The family went on a cruise that served brunch. It was so much fun. We all enjoyed being out on the water. Right by the cruise loading area, they had bi-planes that take people for flights. Randy was itching to go and get up in a plane again, but we didn't have time. He and I had to head back over the mountains to get our dogs in time. We left Cass over with Grandma and Grandpa to spend a couple of weeks.

Randy is still really enjoying being back to work. I asked him how he felt he was performing. He said that, when talking to people, he does great, but he is struggling with the follow through. That is a pretty important part of his job! He and I are working together to come up with ways to help him be more successful with following through with things.

Randy saw his Neruo-opthamologist this week. We didn't like the news we got from this visit. He said that a lot of the pain Randy is experiencing in his eye (his left eye hurts pretty much all of the time) and then on the left side of his head is most likely caused by scar tissue. He also did a bunch of tests to test any improvements in Randy's vision. There were slight improvements, but he reallly feels that Randy's healing has stablized and where he is at now is where he will always be. All along, he has been telling us that Randy's type of double vision cannot be fixed by prisms, but that surgery could probably fix it. His opinion changed a bit this time. He said that even with surgery, Randy will still be left with double vision. He said that surgery might be able to fix the double vision when Randy looks straight ahead, but he cannot fix double vision when Randy looks up, down, or side to side. Even with the straight ahead, it is only somewhat of a possibility. Randy said that he isn't going to risk surgery for a "somewhat of a possiblity".

So, at this point, doctors cannot fix Randy's eyes, only God can. So far He hasn't chosen to do so, but that doesn't mean He won't still yet.

More Working!

Randy went into both the Renton and the Everett office today. He came home with a big smile on his face and said "I had such a good day". He is really enjoying back to work. As soon as he got home, he went straight into his office. He is a happy man!

My day wasn't quite as good as his. I told Cass to call me as soon as she got up this morning because her back was really hurting her last night from her fall off the trampoline. She woke up feeling dizzy. I left work and took her to the urgent care down the street from our house. The doctor said that, even though Cass didn't really hit her head, it sounded like she had a concussion. He gave me a little print out of what to watch out for. I stayed with her the rest of the day. I think she is feeling better tonight, but I will probably stay home with her tomorrow just to make sure. I don't think we will ever be buying a trampoline!

Happy 4th!

We hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th of July. This year for us was most definitely better than last year!

We started the day off with doing some work around the house. Randy and I had gotten a sleeper sofa for his office/spare bedroom. Unfortunately, we did not measure our house or the sofa to ensure we could get it in the room. We just selected the cheapest one we could find (making sure it was still comfortable for Randy's parents, of course!). When they delivered it, they couldn't get it through the door of the bedroom ~ the angle was just a little too off. So, Randy decided it would be a good time to replace our aluminum single-pane window with the double pane window our neighbor gave us when he remodled his house. With the help of our neighbor and his brother, the sofa fit very nicely through the open hole of the window and then we got the new window put in. Since they were over here helping already, they decided to put the double pane window into Cass's room as well. Randy's office is now done. Thankfully, the couch looks very nice in there, because even if it didn't, it can't come back out!

We then headed over to our neighbors house. They have a bunch of their family over every year. They have a trampoline, which Cass absolutely loves. Someone hooked up a sprinkler to the safety net around the trampline, so the kids could jump while cooling off with water. I thought it was a great idea until Cass got off of it and our neighbor Ron convinced her to come give me a hug!

We ended our evening down at Lake Meridian, which is a short little walk from our house. They put on a great show every year. Our neighbors know some people who live on the lake, so we get to go into one of the private beaches to watch the show.

Randy was very tired by the end of the night. He had to use his cain to walk down to the lake. When he gets tired, he has a much harder time with balance.

Randy's First Day

Randy had a great day Friday. He was so excited to be back at work. He called me while he was going from one building to the next and said "This is where I belong." He enjoyed being around everyone again. He had a hard time stopping after 4 hours.

We spent the weekend finishing what Randy had started a little over a year ago ~ turning our spare bedroom into an office. By tomorrow evening, it should be all done. For his parents, we made sure that we still have availability to easily set up a bed in there because we enjoy when they come visit.

Friday night, Randy was actually worn out enough to fall asleep well, which I really appreciated! I was a little surprised at how easily he was able to fall asleep because we had a house full of girls because Cass had a sleepover birthday party. Randy's mom stayed with us the night before and got the house all set up, which we greatly appreciated! All we had to do was enterainment for a little bit and then set them off to do their own thing (crossing our fingers that we wouldn't wake up to a huge science epxeriment gone wrong again).

Randy is looking forward to going back into work tomorrow. I am just so thankful that he has healed enough that he can get back into doing what he loves. And I am thankful that he works for the company that he does and is surrounded by such supportive people!

Randy's Going Back to Work!

Today, Randy got his release from the Boeing doctors to return to work. He met with the Boeing vocational therapist and his bosses to discuss the details.

He goes back to work this Friday!

He will need to drive up to Everett one day a week (Fridays, I believe), but will be able to tele-commute the other 4 days or go into a closer Boeing office. He will be starting out with 4 hours and day and work up there as he is able to handle more.

This has been a long year, but in consideration of the injuries he had, Randy has come so far so fast. The average time for those with severe head injury to return to work is around 18 months, so Randy is ahead of the game by 6 months.

We are so excited!!!!

1 Year Celebration

The celebration event last Saturday went great. I know Randy and I had a great time. We hope everyone that was able to make it did as well. The weather was great. It rained here Friday and Sunday, but Saturday was beautiful. Randy loved seeing everyone and getting to cook burgers for them. People brought so much food ~ the chocolate/cherry mice were absolutely adorable!

We are so thankful for all those that could make it and sorry that we missed seeing those who couldn't make it. It was a great way for us to celebrate the one year anniversary of this last year! Randy still can't stop talking about what a great time he had!

Pics of Cass

I got some pictures of Cass from the John Robert Powers put up on our picture site. I just put my favorites up there.

Check them out:

http://rarush.spaces.live.com/PersonalSpace.aspx?_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaHandler=TWljcm9zb2Z0LlNwYWNlcy5XZWIuUGFydHMuUGhvdG9BbGJ1bS5GdWxsTW9kZUNvbnRyb2xsZXI%24&_c11_PhotoAlbum_spaFolderID=cns!E1159A4D3D1B7ABE!474&_c=PhotoAlbum

1 Year Today

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the car accident. I took the day off with Randy and what a beautiful day to celebrate! Our plan was to go to Harborview and have a picnic there, but we never quite made it. We slept in (which I thought was absolutely wonderful!) and then we went to one of Randy's favorite restaurants, a little diner down the street, for a late breakfast.

It has been a long year to say the least. Our whole world was turned upside down.It set us out on an amazing journey. It has strengthened our marriage and our family. Through this journey, we have met so many new friends and deepened our relationship with old ones.

Through his determination, stubborn attitude, and his great fortune for having such a wonderful circle of family and friends, Randy has come a long way during this last year. He has amazed the doctors and the therapists with the improvement he has made. He has amazed me with his "I am not going to give up" attitude, even times have been tough for him.

Thank you to all of you who have shared in the last year with us. We look forward to celebrating with all of those who can make it to our house this Saturday.

Neuropych results

We finally heard from the doctor today on the results from Randy's second neuropsych evaluation. With Randy's memory, there was significant improvement. He scored within the average, though it was in the low range.


With Randy's visual perception and processing speed, he was still showing significant impairment. He has made about 15% improvement in the last 6 months, though. Just not quite enough to bring him into the average category.

The Neuropsychiatrist is agreeing that Randy is probably ready to give working a shot. Randy is beyond excited! He was on the phone this afternoon trying to get things set up.

The Deposition

Well , Mr Bellinger didn't show up today. I can't say we are surprised, but we are a little disappointed. We waited over half an hour before going on record saying he wasn't showing up. We were at the office another half hour talking to the attorney, and still no Mr Bellinger. The attorney said from this point, what we do is try to contact him to find out why he didn't come and then we take it before the judge and ask for a summary judgement against him. We really won't benefit from it unless he has assets out there that we haven't been able to locate yet, but we can take away his license and try to prevent him from doing something to someone else. Not to say that he won't drive without a license since he was willing to drive without insurance, but at least we try.

With the company that owns the truck that hit Randy, that trial to determine whether or not the case to determine their liability has been moved until August 3rd.

Tomorrow, Randy has a whole day of Neuropsych testing. We probably won't find out the results until the end of the week or beginning of next week.

Randy has spent the last couple of days painting Cass's room. It is looking very blue! Cass started out helping, but that resulted in little blue spots all of the house on our nice hardwood floor so she is no longer helping. Randy is doing a pretty good job.

Update on Court Stuff

We just heard from our attorney ~ the court date to see whether or not the case against the company of the boxed truck that hit Randy will be dismissed or not has been set back until August 3rd. We were a little disappointed. We were hoping to have an answer this Friday of whether or not we get to go to trial with this.

On Monday, our attorney will be meeting with the man who started the whole accident for a deposition. Randy has an appointment scheduled for the same time, but we both really want to go and meet this man. I am not sure what we will say to him, if anything.

Randy's sleep habits are currently all messed up. He really just isn't sleeping. It doesn't matter if he exercises a lot or a little or whether he has had any caffine or not. He just isn't sleeping. He stopped taking any sleep medication because when he would take it, I couldn't wake him up for any of his appointments. He didn't sleep at all Sunday night. He slept pretty well Monday night, but then last night he didn't go to bed until almost 4 in the morning and then had to be woken up around 9 for physical therapy. Needless to say, I haven't gotten much sleep either. He does try to be quiet and not wake me up.

Randy and I bought our house almost 4 years ago. From the time that we moved in, I have been asking him to pain the walls and he always responded "There is no way". Of course, I wasn't going to do it because I absolutely hate painting! Last Saturday, though, he completely surprised me by calling me while I was at work and telling me that he would paint the house for me. I was so excited until I realized why he had chosen now to be willing to do it ~ we can't afford for him to paint! He promised me that he will paint it as soon as we are able to ~ but just to be safe, I think I need to get it in writing!

We are going to go ahead and paint Cass's room now. She and Randy have been working the last couple of days to get the room cleared out (which is no easy feat with all of her stuff!) and get it ready to paint. Her favorite color is blue and she has been begging for light blue walls for the past couple of years. I have been trying to stay out of their hair and letting them work together on this project, only interceding when I have had enough of their bickering and need to tell them to take a break from talking to each other for a little while (they really are too much alike at times).

More Physical Therapy

Before I get into updates on Randy, I have to tell a funny story ~ more for my parents enoyment than anything else. I was on my way to work today, driving on highway 18 where it is still only a two lane highway. I had my radio on and was singing to whatever song was on. I then noticed a little white spider running along the top of my dashboard. I am sure it was trying to run away from my wonderful off-key singing! I am illogically and comically afraid of spiders. Enough so that in my high school years, in the middle of winter (there was snow on the ground), I ran outside in my barefeet, standing in the carport until one of my parents got home because no matter where I tried to run away from the huge spider in the house, I swear it followed me!

So here I am this morning with this little white spider inside my car. The first thing I do is look for a place to pull over at. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough room on the side of the highway for me to stop my car. I know that I can't let this spider continue running around because I could not take my eyes off of it, and that just isn't safe. So with one hand on the steering wheel, I use my other hand to pull my planner out of my purse and then start trying to hit the spider with the planner. Let me tell you, it was a difficult task trying to drive with one hand, keep my eyes on the road long enough to make sure I was staying between my lines, and reaching up to try to hit this spider with the planner! I missed a couple of times and then finally got him. Right after I got him, I quickly checked my rearview mirror and saw that the truck behind me had decided to give me plenty of space! I am sure I looked like a crazy woman!

Anyway... on to Randy's updates for the Memorial Day weekend. Friday, Randy went in to see his physical therapist to work on getting together a game plan for exercises he should be doing now. She was so amazed at the progress he has made since she saw him last (which I think was at the end of November). Friday, she did an evaluation with him. She found that he has gained considerable strength in his left side. It still not comparable to his right side, but it has come a long way. She started working on putting together some exercises for him to do. She said she thinks he should start doing some of the weightlifting in addition to the pool exercises he has been doing. She set up a few follow-up visits to work out the exercise routine with him. He goes back tomorrow for the first follow up visit.

Today, Randy was suppose to start his volunteer work in the church office (he is going to be doing the power point presentation for Sunday sermons). Unfortunately, he and I both forgot. We had a hard time with thinking it was Monday all day. They said they would set it up for him to do tomorrow.

Randy spent the weekend doing little projects around the house. We got a little reimbursment check from insurance for overpayment on presciptions. Since it wasn't money we had budgetted, we decided to use it on a couple of things we had wanted ~ another bookcase and some cheap curtains for our main window. Randy spent the weekend assembling the bookcase and getting the curtains hung. The curtains were a bigger project than I had imagined. We didn't have curtains there before, so Randy had to hang the bar for them. We have blinds on the window, but the blinds are broken. Then, of course, the bar we got was one of the cheapest ones, but it doesn't quite work with the curtains we got. And the curtains were way too long for the window, but we really liked the price so we got them anyway. So he spent awhile using that fake hemming stuff and and getting the bottoms trimmed up.

I wasn't feeling well most of the weekend so Randy wouldn't let me do anything. By Monday, my back and my right leg felt better than they have in quite a while. Our little Yorkie, Max, got his dew claw caught on something and it ripped it part way off, so he got babied this weekend (like he doesn't already!). Today, Randy took him into the vet to get it pulled off the rest of the way. While he was there, Randy had the brilliant idea of getting some drugs for Max for the barbecue. Max loves people and is a very hyperactive dog. He loves to yip and lick everyone to death. He also can't handle being away from people, so if were to lock him up in a room, he would yip non stop. So we had been trying to figure out what to do with him since we want to create an environment where we can visit with everyone. Randy, in all of his brilliance, decided that our best option is to drug Max and let him sleep for awhile. Randy has always been a great problem solver!

Funny Story

I had to share a funny story. At church, Randy doesn't like to sing so he usually sits and looks up things in his Bible. Today, he came across a verse he wanted to show me. He tapped me on the arm and lifted the Bible up to me. As I was reading it, he whispers to me "This verse really correlates with the one that I am learning". To help with Randy's memory problems, the whole family has committed to work on memorizing scripture verses. This week, we all had different ones we wanted to memorize. Randy has been working on his so hard that he often talks about it in his sleep. When he showed me the verse and told me how much it correlated to his verse, I just started laughing. See, the verse he showed me was Proverbs 3:6. The verses that Randy had been learning all week were Proverbs 3:5&6. So, it was the second half of his set of verses.

Also at church today, our pastor used a prop, which he often does. His prop today was this thing that went on his head. It was a band that had spring things coming out of the front of it. The springs came down, ending just about eye level. During the first part of the message, he began putting sticky notes on the ends of the springs so the notes were right before his eyes. Cass and I decided that Randy needed one of these contraptions!

Exhausting Week

This week has been a very tiring week this week. Randy has seemed to move from grinding his teeth to talking in his sleep. Both Randy and Cass talk in their sleep, but with Randy, it is usually only once in awhile. This week, though, it has been every night starting with the Friday before Mother's Day. Even on days that he had gone to Bally's and had exercised ~ he still woke me up throughout the night. One night, he woke me up several times to tell me how much he loved me and appreciated me. Of course, he was asleep through it all. The next day, I told him I would like to be loved and appreciated a little less. I was so exhausted the next day that I had to take a nap during my lunch break.

Today, the three of us had volunteered to do some service work with our church for a place that provides housing for single mothers who need a little extra help. I woke up with a horrible headache. I think it was from a mixture of lack of sleep and allergies. Cass and I stayed home (she is still having some issues with her allergies) and Randy went to help out. So I got to catch up on a little bit of sleep!

Randy had a great time helping out. He worked alongside the pastor, who is familiar with some of the deficits that Randy has with his left side.

Tonight, the three of us played Clue. Randy had a little bit of a hard time with it. He won the first game, but only because Cass and I reminded him of things he had already discovered. Cass has never played Clue before. She is a little too talkative of a kid. She kept giving clues away. But then Randy would forget the clues she had given away. Thankfully, he finds his lack of memory as humorous as we do, so we all had a great time tonight.

Catching Up

It has been a few days since I have updated... and they have been busy days!

Randy went to his Primary Care Physician on Thursday. He and I keep her in business! He talked to her about what the Neurologists at Harborview said about upping his Gabapentin (the medication he takes for his nerve damage). She upped his dosage from 900 to 1200. I guess 1200 is still a low dose comparetively with that medication. We are hoping this increase will help his sleeping habits and his tremors. So far they haven't done much for the sleeping habits! He has gotten very little sleep since starting them, which unfortunately means I have gotten very little sleep.

While he was at the doctor, I got a call from Cass's school. She has been having issues with rashes from allergies. Thursday, she had been in the nurse's office a couple of times so they tried to reach Randy to bring benadryl, but they couldn't track Randy down. When they finally got a hold of me, though, Cass said it was starting to hurt her. So I left work and took her to the doctor. Apparently, something in her system didn't react well with the sun. She hasn't taken any new medication or anything, so we aren't sure what the cause was. Everywhere the sun touched her other than her face, was covered with a rash. It wasn't just a minor little rash. It looked awful. The doctor gave us some medication that wouldn't make her tired like Benadryl does and said to give her oatmeal baths. We took her home, gave her the medicine and the oatmeal baths. Then, as the sun was starting to go away, we let her go outside and play with friends. A couple of hours later, she was miserable. The next day, her leg was all purple. We kept her home and inside the next day and that evening, we headed to Yakima for Mother's Day weekend. By Saturday, the rash was starting to look a bit better. There were some festivities going on in Zillah (a little outside of Yakima), so we covered her with sunscreen and clothes and let her go. The sun still got to her. Today (Monday) we kept her home from school again and kept her inside. It is looking so much better, but I fear that tomorrow will bring the rash back out when she goes outside. I really hope whatever is causing this will get out of her system!

Mother's Day weekend was very nice. Randy's parents got tickets to a play at Zillah high school ~ they put on Beauty and the Beast, and they did an excellent job! We also got to see Randy's Aunt and Uncle and their son. They haven't gotten to see Randy since he was in the hospital. They were amazed at the recovery he has made since then!

Sunday, we all went out for a very nice breakfast and then headed to church. After church, I took a nap so I would have enough energy to drive home. As I said earlier in the post, Randy did nto sleep well at all. When he did finally sleep, he tossed and turned and did a whole lot of talking in his sleep. Nights like that, I hate the fact that I am now such a light sleeper.

Tonight, we took Cass up to Seattle to have her picture taken. They had someone there that did her hair and makeup. We brought a suitcase full of clothes and the photographer picked out the outfits. The guy that did the hair and make up did an excellent job. He made Cass look like a little girl, which is not something I get to see often. Cass loves baggy clothes and doesn't care for the color pink. Even when her hair was long, she wouldn't wear it up. It always had to be down and pushed back behind her ears. The guy tonight used a curling iron, put a little makeup on her, and had her wearing a pink ribbon. She looked adorable. She hated it! I will have to post some of the pictures when they come back in a week or so.

Last little thing I wanted to post ~ Randy's 1 year anniversary is coming up next month. We would really like to celebrate it because we feel like we have so much to celebrate. We of course want to celebrate the fact that Randy is alive, but we also want to celebrate in the fact that we have been put on a path of an amazing journey, though it isn't the path we would have chosen ourselves!

Randy wants to have a Barbeque potluck at our house. We will supply burgers, hotdogs and some pops. We want to invite people to come and bring whatever dish they would like to make and any additional drinks they would like (no alcohol please). Kids are welcome! We would like to have this on Saturday, June 23rd. Randy would love to see everyone, so please pass this invitation around!!

Last Few Days

The last few days have been good. Randy hasn't been grinding has teeth at night, or maybe I am just sleeping through it, either way, I love it!

Wednseday, he did some volunteer work at Green River Community College. They were having health days and he worked in one of the booths. I think he enjoyed being out and getting to meet some new people.

Friday, he went to go to Bally's, but when he got there, he realized that he had forgotten his swimming clothes. So he and Cass went Saturday and had a great time. Randy did some laps using a floaty device. He was really working his arms. It really wore him out and he is a little sore today from it. He wants to get into the habit of going swimming at least 3 times a week. He usually feels really good after going, though it does really wear him out.

NeuroPsych Visit

Today, Randy had an appointment to talk to the Neuropsychologist. Someone had sent him a job description of what they are anticipating what Randy would do upon his return and the Neuropsych was a little worried about it and wanted Randy and I to come in and discuss it with him. Upon reading the job requirements, it does sound like a lot. However, Randy read it and said "Oh yeah, that all looks like easy stuff. Only a portion of what I use to do." The doctor was feeling very uneasy about it, though. We all came to the agreement that Randy will undergo another Neuropsych evaluation towards the beginning of June so that we can get a good measure of how much he has healed and what his capabilities are at that point.

Randy and I also had a session with the counselor today ~ the one that has a lot of experience dealing with TBI survivors and their families. Twenty minutes into the session, she told Randy that she sees a big change in him from last week. She said that he is so much more focused this week. I hadn't noticed it until she said something, but then I did realize that he was staying on topic very well and wasn't going off on long-winded tangents. He really was staying more focused in his thought processes and his conversation. Over the last week, he has been doing a lot more reading and has been able to retain things for a longer period of time. He is actually able to read a book and is able to follow along with the plot. So a lot of change has been happening, a lot of healing going on. I don't always see it because I am with him every day. I love it when people who haven't seen him in awhile point things out.

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!

Busy Days

The last few days have seemed very busy. Randy has been getting out of the house pretty much every day using the Access bus. In the evenings, we have gone to support groups. We have been getting home in time to get into bed. Tonight, I think we are all exhausted!

Randy left another message of the vocational therapist at Boeing. While Randy was out this morning, the person called him back and said that he has a meeting with Randy's manager and his manager's manager next Wednesday to review all of the different aspects of Randy's job and what skills are necessary for the job. He said in his message that he will compile a list that we can take to Randy's doctor to see what ones Randy will have difficulty with. It's a start!

Saturday

Our oven arrived on Thursday and Randy and our neighbor put it in. It is so nice to have a working oven again! We had a freezer full of food we couldn't cook and I think we were all getting tired of eating frozen dinners.

Randy has been utilizing the Access transportation almost every day. At first, I had to schedule everything for him, but I gave him the instructions for how and he hasn't had any real difficulty doing for himself, which is very nice for both of us. He loves getting out of the house for a little while each day, which I can completely understand. I would go crazy being stuck in the house all day almost every day. He has also been playing with the nintendo DS quite a bit. We have the Super Mario Bro game and, at first, Randy really struggled with playing it ~ responding in time to the different situations he comes across in the game or getting his left side to respond enough to do what he wants to do. But he has come a long way in the last few weeks. At one point, he was very frustrated because he couldn't get past one world he was on and I thought for sure he was going to give up. He didn't, though. He stuck with it and kept on trying until he finally made it.

He still hasn't had any luck in dealing with the vocational therapist he has been in contact with at Boeing. I think that person isn't in the office all of the time, so he is hard to get a hold of. When Randy finally did get a hold of him, the guy hadn't done anything as of yet (as far as researching what can be done in Randy's case) so he didn't have any information for Randy. Randy is feeling very frustrated. Hopefully things will start moving with this guy, though, so we can start working on getting Randy back into a working environment.

I think that is it for the updates over the last few days.

Our Oven.. and last few days

The Sears technician came out to take a look at our oven on Tuesday. When Randy turned the power back on, I expected to hear the familiar beeping. Instead, the oven decided to work. He was able to turn it on and off. The technician said that F1 generally means that the control panel and the computer part has gone bad. However, since it wasn't beeping, he figured it had been a stuck key. No sooner had he said that the oven started beeping and started flashing F1. He tried pressing the keys to get it to stop, just as we had. After just a few seconds of listening to it, he asked Randy to please turn it back off!

After pricing out how much it would be for a new computer thing and control panel and the labor charge, we found it was cheaper to get a new oven. Thankfully Sears has a deal going on now for their appliances ~ 10%, free delivery, and 12 months no payments and no interest. Our new oven gets delivered tomorrow. We opted to put it in ourselves and not pay the labor fee, so I am hoping it isn't incredibly difficult. We did alright with taking out the old oven tonight.

Randy has been using Access transit system more. I think it is great ~ that way he isn't stuck in the house by himself all day. I think he was going a bit stir crazy.

More Driving

Today, we contacted Sears to try to figure out what is going on with our oven. One person I talked to tried to find an online manual but had no luck. She did find a manual that she could order for us and have delivered by Friday. We have an appointment for a technician to come take a look at it on Tuesday. I am hoping it is just one of the elements that have gone out and needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, our range top and our oven are hooked up together so in order to use the range, we would have to listen to the constant beeping of the oven. Today, we just utilized the microwave.

For most of the day, Cass was over at a friends house working on a science project. While she was gone, Randy and I ran to Home Depot to price an element for the oven in case that is the issue. On the way home, as we pulled into our residential area, Randy asked to drive the car. He drove around some of the streets in our area before heading home. He said it felt nice to get back behind the wheel.

The Last Few Days

Thursday, Randy tried out the metro system and it worked wonderfully. They came and picked him up right at the door, got him to his appointment on time, and then came shortly after his appointment was over. They picked up a couple of people and did a drop off while on the way home, but they were all relatively close to our area, so he wasn't in the van for an overly long period of time.

The eye appointment went okay ~ no major news with that. Dr Baxstrom did say that Randy's vision was 20/25 last time he checked (prior to the eye drops given by Harborview) and they had improved slightly from that. He increased the prism in Randy's glasses, but they still aren't helping that much. One thing that is interesting, though, is that when Randy has them on, if the object he is looking at moves in some way, while it is moving his brain processes it as one imagine. When the object is still, it becomes two again. Dr Baxstrom encouraged Randy to continue with his eye exercises.

Friday wasn't a great day for Randy. He got up with me when I got up and got ready for work and he stayed awake to get Cass off to school. Then he took a very long walk. The walk must have worn him out. I called him half an hour before he was suppose to leave to get Cass and I reminded him what time she got out of school. Then I called at the time they should have been getting home and there was no answer. I kept calling every few minutes with no answer. I even tried his cell phone and got no answer. I decided to check the home phone messages on there was a message from Cass saing that, since Randy never came to pick her up she walked home with a friend and went to the friend's house. I called the friend's house and told Cass to go home and check on dad. Right as she got home, he finally answered the phone. He had apparently been deeply asleep. When he woke up, he wasn't in a good mood. I think it took him a while to really become fully awake. For the rest of the night, he wasn't feeling that great and just seemed out of it. I was suppose to go to Seattle for a New Parent Orientation at Cass's acting school, but decided to come home instead because I was a little worried about him.

This morning (Saturday), Randy still wasn't feeling that well. Cass had an audition in Seattle this morning. Randy headed out with us, but as we got into downtown Kent, he decided he wasn't up for the ride. So he hung out with his friend Brandon while Cass and I went. This was Cass's first audition in front of an actual agent who was scouting. I thought it would be exactly like the audition to get into the school ~ they gave Cass a script to read and she read it in front of a little group of people. Unfortunatley, because I missed the parent teacher conference, I didn't realize it wasn't like that at all until we got there. It was held in the middle of the kid's section of Macy's. The agent sat at a table and kids lined up to go in front of him. We were third in line. As I watched the first girl go up to him, I saw that she introduced herself and then immediately started in on a commercial. No script was handed to her. We quickly got out of line and asked someone there how things worked and that is when we found out that the kids need to come prepared with a commerical script memorized. So Cass and I quickly ran up to the floor that school was on and got the script of the commerical she had done for her first audition. She quickly committed it to memory and practiced it a couple of times and then we went back downstairs to get back in line. She was so nervous. She lacked confidence when she went up to him, but he said she did a great job doing the commerical script. She just needs to work on pretending to be confident when she introduces herself and when she is leaving. Before actually doing the audition, she kept telling me she was too nervous and wanted to go home. I told her absolutely not. When she had finished with it, she was very glad I didn't let her leave. She had fun and got to experience her first real audition so she will know what to expect for next time. I think the more experiences she has, the more confidence she will have in herself.

Her and I got back in time to pick up the dinners from Dinner's Ready. Randy's parents had gotten us a gift certificate there. We had originally planned on going in and making the dinners ourselves becausde they give you a 5% discount, but everytime we had scheduled to go in, something came up. When we changed it to them making the dinners for us, though, they didn't charge us the additional fee. We tried out our first one tonight and it was very good!

We got back just a little bit before Randy's friend Brandon dropped him off and had just a little bit of time before we were to head back to Seattle for Cass's acting class. Since Randy's driving evaluation when the evaluator said she felt that he was ready to drive in residential areas (but she recommended he get an evaluation done from the DMV before he takes on freeway driving), Randy has really been pushing being able to drive. So today, he got behind the wheel and drove around our residential area. He didn't drive far (we didn't go near any main streets) and I don't think he ever got over 15 mph, but he did quite well. Better than I expected. I think it felt good for me to get in the driver's seat, even if it was only driving around the block.

We then headed to Cass's class. At the end of her class, the teacher had the parents come in and he showed us the videotape of the last couple of commericals the kids had been working on from the last two weeks of class. The first one was from last week. That was Cass's first time on camera. She seemed very tense throughout it. The one from today, though, she seemed very natural. A bit improvement.

A little bit after we got home, I found that I had left our oven on. I find this funny because I get so worried that Randy would do something of this nature while he is home alone and here I was the culprit. Thankfully nothing had been left in it. I turn it off and we all settled on the couch. A little while later, the oven began beeping on us. I thought maybe in my absentmindedness, perhaps I had set the timer. However, when we went in turn it off, we found that the oven display was flashing "F1". We tried hitting every button and nothing would make it stop beeping. We even turned off the power to it and turned it back on a while later. Still beeping. This oven is rather old and of course, we don't have a manual for it and when I tried to search on the internet for one, none could be found. I guess out next step is to call Sears. We just hope that it is some easy fix!

Cass is Back to School

Cass started back to school today. Randy did very good with getting her to and from school. He actually get up out of bed before I left for work today. I thought he would go back to sleep after I left, but when I got to work and called, he was still up. They chose to walk today, but we did get a lock for bikes if they choose to ride bikes. Randy spent the day working on various therapy things. When I called on one of my breaks from my training class, he admitted that he had only really played with the Super Mario game and watched tv, but after talking to me he worked on some of the Brain Age games and did some stretches and exercises for his arm.

Tomorrow, Randy gets to try out the Metro Access bus system for his eye appointment with Dr Baxstrom. I am so thankful that we have the Access system in this area. If Randy were to ride the regular Metro bus, he would have to leave the house at 7:30 in the morning to get to his 11:15 appointment and then he wouldn't get home until after 4:30. Neither of those times works for Cass's school schedule. With the Access bus, they will pick him up right at our front door a little after 10 am and take him straight to the Dr's office. Then they will pick him up and bring him back to our house. What is also nice is, if his appointment takes longer than planned and he misses the pick up time, they will send what they call a "will call" ride out to pick him up to make sure he doesn't have to sit there for a long time.

We heard from our attorney today. I guess the company of the truck that hit Randy has put in a motion for dismissal on the grounds that they are not at fault. If they get it dismissed, we have no real case since the guy that began the chain of events has no insurance and no assets that could be found. The next step for our attorney is to get a statement from the officer at the scene stating that the vehicle was over the weight limit. Then we take that to the hearing and hope that the judge will not dismiss our case. Randy and I don't have to go to the hearing since Randy has no memory of anything that happened. This has me a tad stressed out. I am sure that this is common practice to try to get the case dismissed and everything is just following the routine path, but I can't help but to worry a little that it might actually get dismissed.

Things a little better today

Randy did better today with me not being home. I think it was due in part to me being in training so he knew he couldn't call me and the fact that he didn't get up until I called at noon and had Cass wake him up.

He and Cass also did better today. Since he got up so late, they didn't have much of a chance to do anything. Randy spent a good part of the afternoon playing a game on the Nintendo DS. We have the Super Mario Bros game, which is very similar to the old Super Mario Bro games on the old nintendos (the one that I grew up with). Every day, Randy seems to get a little better with the game. I think it really works his reaction time and works on his coordination. We just need to balance it out with other things as well such as the crosswords and other word puzzles. He did have dinner ready for me when I got home (yeah!!!!!!).

I talked to his doctor about antidepressants to try to balance out his moods. Unfortunately, he cannot take any with the pain medication that he is on because it would increase his risk of seizures.

Back to Work For Me

I finally went back to work full time today. On one hand, it was hard to go in and not be at home, but on the other hand, I was glad to be back. Randy had a bit of separation anxiety and called me a few times and he and Cass drove each other crazy. I think she is looking forward to going back to school on Wednesday and I am sure he is looking forward to having some time to himself at home.

Randy didn't have much time to do a lot of therapy things today because he slept in. When he did get up, he and Cass went on a bike ride around our neighborhood. Then he got some time away from the house by going out with his friend Brandon.

Finally Home

We made it back from Oregon safely. We are all exhausted ~ we got home a little around midnight. The service was very nice. I got to see Randy in a suit, which is a very rare occurance. It was also great getting to meet a lot of the family. This was Randy's biological grandmother. He grew up knowing her and his grandfather, but didn't know the rest of the family. He and his biological brother (who was adopted into a different family) met some of the family for the first time at their grandfather's funeral a few years ago, but since the family didn't really know them, they weren't really treated like part of the family back then ~ I think a lot of people didn't even know who they were. This time it was a completely different experience. An uncle got us hotel rooms, which was very nice. We got a lot of opportunity to sit and chat with some of the family, which we really enjoyed. The service was very nice. After the service and the nice lunch, which consisted of a bunch of Grandma Dunn's recipes, we had to head back to Grandma's house because Randy had left his coat and his wallet there. We ended up being very thankful that he had, even though it added quite a bit of time to our trip home. A few of the relatives headed there after the service, so we got more of a chance to visit with them. There was even talk of a family reunion this summer. It is kind of interesting to meet everyone and see similarities among them and Randy. It shows that who we are is really a mixture of genetics and our experiences. I could see mannerisms that were similar in people Randy had not met or only briefly encountered and of course, a big part of who Randy is comes from his upbringing and experiences through the Rushes (he definitely has Paul's sense of humor!). It is all rather fascinating.

When we finally made it home, we all kind of looked around the housealmost as though we expected things to be different ~ as though, while we were out, little faries had come and changed everything around. Everything had remained the same. We were all very glad to make it home. Randy's motion sickness patch held up until the very last little part of the trip. As I pulled into our community, I had to quickly pull over for him. I am very thankful that the patch worked as long as it did.

We all slept in a bit, but had to get up a little in time to get our dogs. They were very excited to see us. Tonight, we took Cass to her class. Tonight was her first time being on camera. Next week, she will get to see herself and see how she did. We got home in time to head to the church down the street from us to watch a play. A boy she goes to school with was in it and invited her ~ she says he is NOT her boyfriend, but when I made her go say hi to him afterwards, they both turned bright red and he did nothing but look at the floor. It was adorable!

We are glad to be back at home!

Our First Day Back Home

Our first day back home was exhausting! We all didn't get into bed until clost to 2 am and then had to get up early. Cass headed off to school and Randy and I went in for his driving evaluation at Valley Medical Center. He did better on the cognitive testing part than he had the previous time. He only missed 1 out of 30 or so questions. He also did better on the driving part and the responding to hazardous conditions. Without putting all of the info into the computer, she couldn't say how much better. Her recommendation was to have Randy go into the DMV and ask to take the driving test. I think it was more of a way of not wanting to responsibility of saying that Randy was ready to drive and then have something happen. Some of his response times were still a little slow, which would be very worrisome if he had to respond quickly to something. Randy was happy that she didn't say definitely no to him driving.

The driving evaluation took up all morning. We got done barely in time to pick up the dogs before they closed for lunch. We weren't scheduled to pick them up until late afternoon, but we were both really missing them. They were so excited to see us. It was the first time we had used this kennel so I was a little nervous about leaving them. We use to leave them with a lady that would just let the dogs run throughout her house. She spoiled Max rotten. She even let him sleep with her. But she stopped watching them in her house, which I am sure is better for her sanity! It was always a mad house. So we left them at a kennel. The person that was there today told us that Max was definitely a barker! It must have driven him crazy to see all of the dogs and not get to play with any of them! They also gave the dogs a bath and clipped their nails before we picked them up. I am thinking they need to go stay more often! Randy and I together can't clip Daisy's nails because she hates it so much.

We got home in time for me to crash ~ my eyes wouldn't stay open any longer! I thought Randy would take a nap, too, but he stayed up and worked on therapy exercises. We spent the evening doing laundry and getting things repacked for our trip to Oregon for the memorial service for Randy's Grandmother.

We Made it Home

We made it home safely. Our trip home was a lot better than our trip there. All planes left on time and we had 2 hours in Minneapolis, which gave us enough time to walk in almost every little shop from the gate that we got off at to the one that we left from.

Randy did very well on the plane rides. Those patches work amazing! Thankfully he has one more left. We found out a few days ago that his Grandmother passed away. Thursday, we will have a car trip down to Oregon to meet with family and the service will be held down there on Friday.

Sunday

We had a nice day today. We got up in time to head to church this morning. With the 2 hour difference, it was a little hard to get up ~ I hit snooze a couple of times. After church, we headed to the one and only restaurant in Oilton (the little town my parents live in). Everytime I come, it seems the restaurant has changed owners ~ someone else is giving it a go. As long as it has chicken fried steak, though, Randy is happy. I think that is what he has ordered at every place we have eaten while we have been here.

We got finished with lunch in time for my mom, sister and I to head to a ladies tea at the church. I thought I was stuffed when we left the restaurant. Then, they brought out the cheesecake and the chocolate covered strawberries at the tea. While everyone was eating, my sister handed out little prayer cards to everyone. The card I got had Matthew 17:20 on it. This is the verse that was with me while Randy was in Harborview. I repeated this over and over while I was driving to Harborview in the mornings, while I was sitting next to Randy holding his seemingly lifeless hand while in ICU ~ "if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." In reading the card I had to fight back tears. At the beginning of this journey, it seemed so easy to rely on faith because really I could do nothing else. Now that we are 7 1/2 months into it, sometimes it can be harder to have the faith. I know this card was given to me to remind me.

A Day of Visiting

Our morning started out with a phone call from Randy's cousin. He lives in Tulsa and was coming our way for a basketball game. We got to visit with him for awhile this morning before he had to take off. Shortly after he left, my family began showing up for lunch. My mom made her "red chicken" (barbque chicken), which is one of my favorites! The last time I was here, she had started to make it for me and then had to be taken to the hospital so I was a little hesitant to ask this time, but it all worked out okay this time. We had a very nice meal and a good time visiting with everyone.

The last couple of days, Randy has been dealing with being in not-so-good moods. Most of the day, he wanted to just hide out in the bedroom, but he did alright with making himself come out and visit some. In the last few months, his moods have gone up and down, but I think he is starting to realize it more and has said that he want to talk to his doctor about trying some medication that might help some. I was wondering if it was kind of a sensory overload that affected his moods the last couple of days. He has also been reading the books of other people's experience with TBI and is feeling a bit down about the life that he has lost. I just remind him of Joe at our support group. He is 2 years post accident and has come a long way. He attributes having a positive attitude for how far he has come in the last 2 years. Sometimes it is hard to keep a positive look on things, especially when you look into the past and long for what you had. You just have to keep your focus to the present and all that you have now.