Thursday, November 5, 2015

Acquired Brain Injury Day 13

Tomorrow Colleen will be moved to the "High Dependency Ward". I see this as more forward progress. Her cognitive and memory are improving very quickly and she is remembering more and now knows who I am in relationship to her, which is a great relief to me. The "High Dependency Ward" is a ward for critically ill patients who have improved enough not to need one on one nursing. As I understand it, Colleen will be in a ward with one other patient with one nurse to oversee both of them. A small improvement, meaning she is moving to recovery.

Once it was apparent that she was regaining her cognitive skills the big concern was her physical development and from what I could see she would have no problem with this area. Time is critical and while her recovery is slow, it appears to be more forward than stalled.


With Danielle and Adam in town and able to visit my mood was getting more positive as was Colleen's. Ryder would be allowed to visit tomorrow and Colleen was looking forward to seeing him.


I have not yet talked about the support of friends and family back home and I need to say thank you for all of the needed support. Since I made the first phone calls I have made it a point to connect with only a select few back home, these people have agreed to spread the word about how Colleen is doing to others. This saves me energy, and time. I have an abundance of time, but not much energy and so I am careful how I use the energy. Over the last two week I have been drained and exhausted every day so I am careful how I expend what little energy I have. I phone back home every day, either to my son, Colleen's Mom or her brother or my brothers and my best friend.


The most difficult decision was about how to tell Colleen's mom who is 88 about how Colleen is doing. We decided to wait until we had an idea of how things were going. Colleen's Aunt (her mom's sister) past on the information that we should tell Colleen's mom sooner rather than later. So even though all the family knew within a day of the injury, Colleen's mom was told on the fourth day. She was told by Colleen's brother, and she took it better than we had expected.


I made a point of phoning her every two days, to keep her aware of what was going on with Colleen. I also talked to my younger brother every two days to vent, and to get some of my feelings out and he is a very good listener. For most of the other family I reported on Colleen's progress and listened to their statements of concern and well wishes. 


The response has made me feel so much better. I need the support of friends and family and when it was needed most it was there. I cannot imagine how I would have coped without the support I am receiving. Thanks to all.  

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