Posted on 12/09/2006 8:48:18 AM PST by knittnmom
Copywrited site-but this family attends my church and needs prayer urgently.
Tom posted updates this morning...Seems Heatherjane now has the bug that is going around, as does Reagan...
December 28, 2006 at 09:26 AM CST
Sorry for no update yesterday. I wasn't able to visit Ian yesterday, as whatever Ian had, I now am suffering from the same thing. I can tell you, if Ian felt like I did yesterday, I feel really bad that we were asking him to try to eat and do rehab! Once again, Ian proves that he's tougher than the average bear.
Here's what HJ told me about yesterday. Ian continues to make progress. Using a walker probably isn't in the cards, though maybe now that he's feeling a lot better his strength will be better. His short-term memory is showing improvement as well. He was able to remember where the penny was hidden, though it took a bit of cajoling to get him to cough up the information. Joel, his therapist, believes Ian knew where it was, but was just being playful about telling him. In fact, Joel believes Ian knows a lot more than he's willing to show.
When I talked to Ian this AM, he was chatty, and he sounded great. He knew the date and he knew that next year is going to be 2007, so we think he's getting better. We do want to keep praying, though. Oh, and HJ told me this morning that Ian was able to write his first and last names and remember our phone number yesterday! These are all good things.
The folks at the hospital are optimistic that Ian may be able to come home as early as tomorrow. Much of this will depend on our ability to get the house ready. We've ordered ramps (for the wheelchair) and are trying to figure out the logistics, as we would love to get him home as soon as we possibly can.
Unfortunately, we don't have only good news to report. Whatever bug Ian had seems to be running through our family right now. It started with me yesterday, and HJ got sick at the hospital last night. This morning, Reagan got sick. Please pray that that's the extent of our experience with this bug--We'd hate to see it work its way through all eight of us!
Tom and HJ
December 28, 2006 at 09:32 AM CST
One more item for prayer. Our insurer, DeanCare, does pretty much all of its pediatric rehab at their clinic on the far east side of Madison. This is a 50-mile round trip for us, and we think that it would be tough for both us and Ian if we had to do 3 hours/week of rehab all the way over there.
UW has a clinic right in Middleton, where they could do all the rehab, using mostly the same therapists that are currently working with him. We are trying to get a referral from Dean to go to this clinic. The paperwork is in process, but we need your prayer for a positive outcome.
Thanks.
Tom and HJ
BTTT
GI virus is the pits.
Prayers of thanksgiving for Ians progress so far.
Prayers for complete healing continue.
BTTT and prayers!
Thank you so much for sharing this testimony. God is praised!
Just called Heatherjane's cell phone #, and her daughter Meredith told me she couldn't talk right now because she's getting Ian into the car. He's going home! :-) :-) :-) :-) (That's all I know for now.)
Oops! Previous post should have gone to you all!
Praise God....I am so happy for Ian and the family.
However, can you keep us updated...as I will be praying for his recovery..his leg, his poor eye and also for Tom..
Has he had anymore problems in the last day or so??
Prayers up...
sleuth
YYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY
I'll probably update less frequently, but I will update as often as I get information. Tom was quite tired last night, but I haven't talked to anyone except Meredith today. (I figured they might have plenty of excitement today - I'll call them tomorrow or Sunday to see how things are going.)
Anyway, Ian's right eye tested yesterday at 20/200. The eye doctor (I forget if he's an optometrist or an ophthalmologist) doesn't expect it to improve much over that. He, of course, is unaware of the the volume of prayers going up on Ian's behalf!
Doctors are performing so many "miracles" (from God) lately, that I have no doubt that they will come up with some way to help Ian see better out of that eye in time.
I am sure most of Tom's problems are stress and fatigue...I pray that now that Ian is home, he will get more rest and can take better care of himself.
Thank you so very much for letting us know how Ian and family have been doing.
Prayers continuing for them all..
sleuth
I think Tom and HJ will both have less stress, I think, once they can both be at home with all their children, and not dividing their time between home and hospital. With all the people who are praying for Ian, many of them specifically for a complete healing of his eye, I will be very thankful - but not all that surprised - when it comes to pass that he has 20/20 in that eye! :-)
Praise from whom ALL blessing flow.
BTTT
Ian's dad (Tom) posted this late yesterday-it's lengthy!
December 29, 2006 at 09:30 PM CST
IAN CAME HOME TODAY!!!
Well, it has been an eventful couple of days. First, the most important news--Ian was discharged from the hospital today. Our heads are swimming a bit from the information dump the doctors and therapists conducted this morning, but the most pertinent fact is that Ian is now home. We just put him to bed (on an aerobed in our room for now) in our house tonight. He seems pretty happy to be here, though it's been a long day.
A quick summary of events. Wednesday evening, HJ called to inform me that she had caught Ian's bug and was very sick. Fortunately, Thursday AM I was feeling better (though Reagan came in announced that she was now sick), so Morgan and I went to the hospital, I took HJ home and put her to bed, and I sat with Ian the rest of the day. Ian made a lot of progress, but still had a little GI problem yesterday PM and was ready for bed by about 8 PM yesterday night. I watched Texas A&M get whipped by whoever they were playing and went to sleep too.
This morning, Ian woke up and seemed to be feeling much better. He was talkative, ate a good breakfast, and finally seemed to have recovered from his GI issues. He had a couple of great therapy sessions where he was able to move himself around on a little scooter, showed me how he can creep up steps (it's very important that he not bear weight on his broken leg for the next three weeks), threw lots of bean bags, etc. He also was able to do much better on memory games, though he's still not back to where he was.
Then, we had the "family meeting," the precursor to discharge from the hospital. I'm not sure how to capsulize the contents of the meeting, but I'll give it a shot. In general, they said that Ian's recovery curve was very good--better than expected, especially given his setbacks from hyponatremia and the GI virus. On most tests, he had gone from "below average" to "in the normal 4 year old range." We know this is good news, but we know he's clearly not back to where he was. We will continue to work on this and pray for his recovery.
Fine motor skills have shown lots of improvement in the last week, but he still has shortcomings that need to be addressed through therapy. Ian's biggest challenge now is what they call the "higher level functions" of speech and language. He's made a lot of progress, but he still has some difficulty organizing and categorizing things, paying attention for a long time, and staying on topic. Those of us who know Ian know that this was one of his strongest skills prior to the accident, so while we're very pleased with his progress, we are very concerned that he's struggling in this area. Again, this is a place where we will focus on therapy and prayer.
Physically, his broken leg will hold him back for a while. We won't know about his walking balance, etc. for several weeks. We'll continue to work on his upper body strength with his wheelchair and with this cool little hand-powered scooter the hospital let us borrow, but walking will have to wait. His vision continues to be the same. Dr. Tan said his vision in his right eye is about 20/200, while the vision in his left eye is 20/20. Unfortunately, the issue in the right eye is nerve related and will probably not be 100% correctible. We continue to pray for healing, though the doc suspects that this may well be permanent damage.
I'm guessing I'm going to reach the word limit shortly, so I will continue in the next post...
December 29, 2006 at 10:14 PM CST
IAN CAME HOME TODAY! (CONTINUED)
My apologies if you received multiple emails. The page malfunctioned and my second post didn't make it to the server--however, the first page was posted four times...now I have to remember what I wrote.
It's been very difficult to express how we feel about what the doctors and therapists told us today. We struggle about whether to be excited about the progress he's made, or worry about what's to come. The folks at the hospital are so impressed with the progress Ian's made, and so are we. However, they really don't know Ian like we do, so they don't understand the baseline like we do. When we see Ian struggle to remember things, to stay on topic or to express himself, it just kills us, because we know that this was Ian's greatest strength prior to the injury, and we wonder if he will ever get back to that place. It's hard to be objective when you sit where we do, because he's our little boy and we love him so much. He's already proven that he's tougher than nails, but to us he seems so fragile--all we can do is pray, have faith and work hard to help him recover.
HJ and I want to thank all the wonderful people at UW Children's hospital who worked with us to care for Ian and help him recover. The PICU staff, the nurses and nurse assistants on the Peds floor, the people who cleaned our rooms, the great doctors and therapists--we can't ever thank you enough for helping to save our son. After three weeks at the hospital, you became more like friends and family than hospital staff. While we won't miss being at the hospital, we will miss seeing all of you.
Also, we got some good news on the insurance front. Dean agreed to allow us 8 visits for each therapy specialty at the UW Clinic in Middleton, followed by the creation of a treatment plan that will be considered at that time. We think this is a fair place to start.
we thank the folks at Dean and UW Health for working together to make this happen. Using the Middleton location will provide for continuity of doctors and therapists, and will save us a 50 mile round trip to Madison's far east side for each therapy visit. We think this will be good for both Ian and our family.
I think that's about it. We are so excited to have Ian home with us. If you would like to visit, please do so, but don't come to the hospital, because we won't be there! If you would like to visit us at home, we'd love to have you, but call HJ first, or you risk arriving at an empty house!
While Ian's out of the hospital, he is far from finished. We still need all of your prayers for his full recovery. I will continue to post updates, but since his therapy will be on an outpatient basis, progress reports will probably not be daily (unless something big happens, one way or another). Thank you for all you have done for our family. We wish each of you a great New Year's weekend!
And to Harvey's Mom: Ian definitely remembers--he'd love to see Harvey. Give us a call.
BTTT
For now, do not be overly concerned about short attention spans and short term memory problems. Attention spans and memory come back with time.
I had a severe concussion from a car accident and for a while had a hard time reading the funnies in the daily paper.
I was better after a couple of months. Memory comes with practice, as do the organizational skills, he will be ready to work on both as his attention span improves.
Be of good cheer, and May all of God's blessings be made manifest for you all.
Thanks for that new update...
It sounds daunting, I know....but at this point, prayers, love, and Ian's fighting spirit will work more and more every day...
Prayers continuing for all
sleuth
May God continue His blessing of grace and mercy.
Thanks, Smokin'. I'll pass along your encouraging story to Ian's parents. (I've been cutting and pasting the comments and prayers into a Word doc to print off later. As of two days ago, I had 56 pages!)
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