September 5 - A Trip Outside!

Today was another roller coaster ride on this journey, with AJ experiencing both very frustrating and very exhilarating experiences.  Throughout the night leading to this morning, AJ experienced painful sensations that kept him awake most of the night, then during rehabilitation therapy, his long-awaited trip outside finally arrived.

Unfortunately, the busy day in rehab yesterday did not translate into a great night of sleeping.  Although he was extremely tired, his body was experiencing sensations of nerve burn.  It has been interesting that most of AJ's pain does not come from the surgery to repair the vertebrae, but from the injuries sustained to his nervous system.  He only takes occasional Tylenol for pain, about twice a day, for the aching in his neck and shoulders.  But serious pain caused by the injured nerves tormented him on Thursday night.  Nerve burn is what we call the shocking sensations that inflict AJ's body as soon as it begins to fully relax.  He described it like the feeling of your hand or foot "waking up from being asleep" with the pins and needles sensation.  Except it was all over his body and occurred for many minutes.  This painful experience kept him from wanting to fully relax and fall asleep.  Therefore, it was a long, frustrating night where he so desperately wanted to get a deep sleep so that he could work hard in his therapy classes today.  He ended up not getting much sleep at all.

Early in the morning he was told that today would be the day he would get his first shower since the accident, 9 days ago.  He was excited to hear about this and looked forward to it.  When the time came, he was transferred from his bed to a gurney made of tubing and a mesh screen for him to lay on.  He was wheeled to a large shower room where he was washed while laying on the mesh gurney.  He said that it felt very refreshing and very good to be clean again.

A shower after 9 days may just have been the highlight for the day if it weren't for his therapy sessions.  Today he not only got to sit up on his power wheelchair, but he actually was able to take a ride outside!  This is something that he had been wanting to do for days!  The sun felt so good on his face and the breeze felt great in the shade.  During the first PT session, the therapist "drove" the chair from the side.  During the occupational therapy session, he rode the chair down to the gym for a tour and the therapist made him a part for his wheelchair that slides onto the steering joystick of the chair to allow him to be able to use his wrist and palm to steer the chair.  He then spent the afternoon PT session learning to drive his wheelchair.  He drove the chair back to his room and it was quite impressive!

The issue of upright tolerance continues to be a big issue.  AJ's chair can recline, which is a nice feature, because reclining is one thing that can be done to help increase blood pressure when AJ's blood pressure starts dropping from being upright.  Other things help with this issue such as wearing an abdominal binder and compression socks while upright.  AJ struggled a little bit with blood pressure regulation while on his wheelchair tour today.  Before his therapy sessions, he was given medicine to increase his blood pressure so that he would be fine on the wheelchair.  However, while on the tour, he was reclined too much, too long and he started getting a headache.  His blood pressure had risen too high and we had to incline his chair and remove the abdominal binder to find the right balance of blood pressure - not too high, not too low.  It's amazing how incredibly sensitive our bodies are and a miracle that they work as well as they do under normal circumstances!

Today we received another visit from Doctor Rosenbluth.  We talked to him about the nerve burning that AJ experienced overnight.  He said that he will prescribe some medicine which will dull the pain, without interfering with the healing process.  We were grateful to hear that!  He also performed some assessments on AJ, but mentioned that there will continue to be assessments into next week in order to determine the extent of AJ's recovery, from a medical perspective.  We were told that a meeting will be scheduled for next week with the doctors, AJ and us to discuss the results of their assessments and an estimate of expected recovery.  We realize that this estimate will be based solely on the evidence seen, but we know that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)  We have faith in the Savior Jesus Christ and His Priesthood power and believe that He will grant all of the miracles promised to the faithful, regardless of seen evidence or not.