Supercharged update

As I type this, Chris is avidly watching the Super Bowl. Me, not so much (although we are rooting for all the Michigan players playing). It is getting interesting now, with 3 minutes to go, but that would just be another excuse to postpone an update that has been 5 months coming. So here goes!

First of all, we cannot really express what an incredible support network our family and friends have been to us over the last 6 months. Hopefully we have managed to get to talk/email/catch up with most everyone in the last few months but if not, then here's your update!

August 1, 2008 and the subsequent 6 months have been a time we could never have imagined. Chris was hit, on the driver's side, by a '93 Chevy truck that clearly ran a red light. Chris was driving a '97 Honda Accord (pre-side airbags). The other guy was going 45, Chris was going 20. Summary: Not good. Chris had multiple bodily injuries to his left side, including multiple broken ribs, a broken collarbone, an occipital bone fracture, a punctured (and bleeding into) lung, basically a fractured spleen, a fractured pelvis, multiple cuts and bruises over the left side of his face and left side. He was also unconscious at the scene and ended up being intubated on site. All of this happened less than a mile from our place, at an intersection that we pass/drive through every single day. I will spare you the picture but it can be found on the Internet (which was posted, with Chris' personal information, without his or my permission!).

Chris was immediately taken to WakeMed Hospital, which is actually quite good for traumas, thank god. I was in Antigua, Guatemala on vacation and I got quite testy with the nurses who wouldn't give me information because it was a HIPAA violation. Stupid HIPAA. Fortunately, one of my Duke attendings made the trauma surgeon call me in Guatemala, as I was on my way to the airport (a big shout-out to Benji, Peggy, Beatrice, and Continental Airlines for getting me home so quickly), to give me an update. He told me all about the physical injuries, with the spleen laceration being the one they were most concerned because of internal bleeding. Over the next couple days, Chris's blood count did a very slow drift down, but did not slip precipitously enough to trigger a need for exploratory surgery.

Chris was also briefly on a propofol drip to keep him calm because of the pain. He started responding with hand squeezes over the next couple days while he continued to fight his intubation. Chris physically stabilized (chest tube out, breathing tube out, starting to sit up) over the first week and then it became more apparent that a traumatic brain injury was going to be a major lasting injury from the accident. He spend the rest of the month in the hospital (ICU and rehab) working on rehab from the physical and mental injuries.

(side note: Happy for the Steelers but sad for Arizona..what a last quarter comeback! Exciting game!)

When we went home, Chris started a fairly intensive outpatient rehab program, going to physical, occupational, and speech/cognitive therapy for 3 hours, 2-3x/week. His fractures were healing nicely (an interesting side effect of getting a brain injury is that you tend to make bone quicker) so he spent a lot of time rebuilding his strength from being in the hospital and non-weight-bearing on the left leg for about 6 weeks (after the accident). The occupational and physical therapists worked on regaining strength (especially in his arm) as well as working on fine motor skills. And the very patient speech therapists worked on voice/speech issues (decreased volume, mild slurred speech) as well as cognitive issues like mental processing speed and flexibility, short-term memory issues, and organizational issues. We even got to play with Nintendo DS's and lots of board games as "therapy" (hey, I wasn't going to be left out!).

Chris finished his therapy program in December. Oddly (to me at least), Chris would make these really great leaps in his therapy even time we took a little break from therapy for several trips out to California Oct - Dec. We worked on walking distances, starting at a quarter-mile in September to walking 2 miles by Nov/Dec. He's recently even begun running very short distances! Chris was cleared to start driving again in December and with a month of practice, I stopped silently white-knuckling the passenger side seat (it was that bad but occasionally I was a little concerned). He's been job shadowing since early January and, true to form, wanted to start back to work after about 3 sessions of that. If all continues to go well, he may try to go back to work soon. We're crossing our fingers.

We've also been fortunate to spend time with lots of family and friends who made the trip to see us as well as all those who sent us many scrumptious snacks, beautiful flowers, and other goodies. Since I don't want to leave anyone out, I'll post pictures on my Flickr site. Lots of Rock Band was played and lots of BBQ eaten. Good times!

As well as everything has gone, everything is still not quite the same as it was before. And sadly, it may never be again. Chris made huge amounts of progress over the first 2-3 months, but since then the rate of progress slowed down. Despite all his strides, Chris still has numbness and relative weakness (mostly on the left side), he takes some medication that helps with the neuropathic pain. He is a slower typer with both right and left hands (this aggravates him to no end) and still has some slurred speech and some mental flexibility issues that are from his brain injury. This may not get much better. At this point, only time and patience are the best healers.

I can honestly say (and since I proclaimed it on Facebook, it must be real, right?) that I have never respected and admired Chris' internal strength and determination more than over the past 6 months. He worked on getting better every single day, for hours and hours. It didn't matter how frustrated he was with the whole ugly situation, he never stopped giving it his all. And I feel so fortunate that Chris remained, in all senses, himself. Sometimes brain injured people lose their sense of humor or undergo a personality change and I can't even imagine where or what we would do if that happened but Chris is still Chris. And I can't ask for anything more (although Chris might!). Thank you again, from the very depths of our hearts, to all for everything. We hope to see you soon!