Tuesday Afternoon, June 19th

Another day, another chapter in the amazing recovery or Allie and boy is it a tiring one. It started at 7:15 this morning when Nancy and I got to the rehab (which really is a hospital which has a different emphesis - that is to get Allie functioning mechanically). Allie was sleeping but not for long. The nursing staff here is awesome and they are very structured. This is good as they are working on getting Allie on a normal schedule. That's kind of funny because when we left last night, I said to Allie "we'll see you at 7 in the morning and she kind of shouted in her (now) high pitched voice (don't know what that's all about) NOOOO that's to early. Big shocker for her. Well at 7:30 they cam in, woke her up and immediately got her into the bathroom and then in for a shower. nancy and a nurse went in together and what a fiasco. Allie is in a new phase and a much, much, much more demanding one. She talks non-stop and I mean every single second she is awake she is talking in a non-stop high pitched voice, alot of times nonsense, many time making sense but always demanding something. I pray constantly not to get fustrated with her as she is working so hard and amazing the heck out of me every moment of every day. Well I sat here and had a good cry while they were in the shower. It was one of those ones where you want to cry but bite your lip and do all of the crying inside. Just the sounds of fear in Allie's voice coming from the bathroom. She kept saying "I'm scared, I'm scared" and and it took everything to keep from breaking down. As Allie enters this new phase, she is being reborn and everything is new to her and with brain injury patients they can not filter our outside distractions so they are constantly processing every distraction and can overload. She hears every noise and feels every breeze, and is distracted by everything. She is feeling pains she never felt before and is extremely confused about many things but her sense of humor is there. When asked today if she knew where she was -her answer was here and when pressed further she said she was in her fathers room. She also said my name was pie. When I asked why she said because she liked pie. Different but brought a smile to my face. Later in the day she said my name was George. When I said I thought it was pie she just smiled. Today Allie met with the physical therapist twice, the occupational therapist, speech therapist, recreational therapist and we all met with the physologist. Today was a day of getting to know Allie and learn what she was like before the accident so they know what to shoot for on the road to recovery. It was also a day of goal setting and getting to learn the ropes around here. Since Allie is not eating and they have been tube feeding her, they are going to stop the feedings to the next 24 hours with the hopes that she will get hungry enough to eat. We got Allie into a wheel chair this morning and she seemed to enjoy it but she was VERY fearful about getting out of bed. She tried to get out of bed twice last night so they wanted to put a tent over her bed so she could not escape and possibly hurt herself. The head doctor, Dr. Toma, who is excellent did not want that and told us we had to stay her during the night. Nancy will recieve sainthood after tonight and the next few night. Don;t know how long we have to do this. At physical therapy, Mark (PT) got her out of the chair and together he and I got her to use a walker - 10 steps. I was so proud. Right now Allie says everything hurts her or feels terrible or something. I mean non stop. It's jibber jabber - incessant jibber jabber. At luch time she got a chik-filet sandwich and some fries and it was funny because this is some of Allie's favorite food. Well when we gave her the sandwich she looked at us and said "I would never eat anything like that - it's horrible - I would never eat that?" The I tried to give her a nice waffel fry and she just looked up at me and said "NEVER!" We are heavily relying on God to give us patience. We kind of just look at each other and chuckle. If you have never been in this situation, and I hope you haven't - I mean, OH MY GOD. You couldn't wait for her to talk ........ All Allie keeps saying is you hurt me. If you touch her finger she says you hurt me. The doctors have counseled us on what to expect and this is part of it. They said she may be here as little as two and a half to three weeks. This floored us but they said at the rapid rate she is progressing, we would be surprised at where she will be 3 weeks from not. Sounds odd to us but we can see what they are talking about. Who knows? They are split up into teams here and Allie is on team #1 (of course). That means that she has the same doctors and therapists every day - I like that. Allie just wanted to go to the restroom and got us easier and walked better. God is good. Well this could be the longers blog ever but I could not close without acknowledging someone. Marla M (you know who you are) and family. You could possibly be the nicest family in the country. Thank you for the package you sent - it was the most unbelieveable thing I have ever seen. Words will never be enough. The 2 Marlas. God Bless You. Well if you can believe it, it is only 5:00 pm, what an awesome day. I love and appreciate each and everyone of you. Clare and Kim - thanks for the e-mails. Might be back later. Allie's Dad