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.