Angela's Blog

Hi all-

Ang has had a great morning.  Or at least it was great for Teresa and I.  The weekend speech pathologist came by this morning to run through some swallowing exercises with Ang. Ang wasn’t too into participating.  I honestly think that she just didn’t like the gal that came to work with her..  What can you do..

After the speech pathologist left, Teresa went home for some much needed rest and to get cleaned up after a long night.  Ang had been restless most of the morning and wiggled her way down the bed once again.  We have been trying to communicate with her as much as possible with the dry erase board the past couple of days.  Thus far her writing (response and of her own volition) has been fairly simple.  Yes, No, etc. This morning while half-way down the bed she wrote, “reposition me”.  I was shocked and elated at the same time!! I then asked her if she understood everything that we were saying to her, which she responded in writing, “yes”.  Huge praise!!

Since we were on a roll and we have been wondering about what kind of pain she is in, I asked her if she hurt.   Another “yes”..  She is coming up to the surface and her brain is beginning to register that fact that her body is injured.  Tough to see her in pain, but great to know that she feels it.  Later on we asked her on a scale of 1-10 how much pain she was in and we got a very large 10 on the dry erase board.  Ang got some more pain meds while she was in the cardiac chair and drifted off to sleep.  I hope that her dreams are sweet…

Her physical injuries have healed miraculously.  Her arm looks great and the swelling in her face is almost completely gone. She has been pretty agitated lately, but I think that she has been in pain and unable to articulate this to us.  It is a complete catch 22 with the pain meds.  We don’t want her to be in pain, but at the same time we need her to be able to participate in her PT, OT, and ST. 

Angela is doing great, but we have a long way to go.  I wanted to share with you all exactly what her injury is so you can understand where she is at and know what you can be praying for.  According to the material that I have read only about 10% of the people that suffer her kind of brain injury ever wake up. Every day is a gift….

Her brain injury is called diffuse axonal injury.  I am adding a couple of links for you all to reference if you are interested. 

http://www.brainandspinalcord.org/traumatic-brain-injury-types/diffuse-axonal-injury/index.html

Below is a link to what is referred to as the Rancho Los Amigos coma scale.  Ang currently falls in-between a 3 and a 4 out of 8 phases.   Her continued progress has truly been a miracle.

http://www.waiting.com/rancholosamigos.htm

Angela’s aunt Marian said that it took God 9 months to knit her together in her mother’s womb and that these are the terms that we should be thinking in as our great God knits her back together again.  She is a wonderful woman and has such a heart for Ang.  The journey would be exponentially more difficult without her loving support.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  Thank you all for you continued outpouring of love and prayers.

Josh