Jennaishealed.org

Yes, Jenna is finally home!

For Good!

Our little family was torn apart and thrown to the winds roughly six and a half years ago.  Late next month, it will be put back together, permanently.  It has been a long (6.5 year) journey that took us from Alabama to California, to two cities in Indiana, but we are finally achieving something, in my mind anyway, truly spectacular. 

Jenna had her appointment with the medicaid people today who are going to transfer her funding from the refab place where she is now, to our humble little apartment here in Terre Haute.  I put nearly 45,000 miles on my 1991 BMW e30 (which is now for sale by the way) in the last 21 months going to see her as often as I could since returning from the year-long hell in Alabama when I was down there completely renovating our old house for sale (it is also *still* for sale) and generally recovering from the previous three years of unmitigated hell trying to take care of her all by myself without the support of the proper medication or any competent medical or other professional help whatsoever.  (whew.)  Nobody who I took her to had any idea what they were looking at, nor the first clue how to treat it.  Jenna’s own parents did almost zero to help me with Jenna herself and the exodus to California proved futile as well.  I will spare the details of how it happened but eventually Jenna’s parents woke up and stepped in to help, flying in to California to pick her up and take her back to the Indianapolis suburb where they now live.  (For the record, they have since and are now being fairly terrific all things said and done.)  After seeing for less than a week what I had been trying to deal with for three years, they took her to the local emergency room and we all got very fortunate because it just so happened that the ER doctor who happened to be on call that night and saw Jenna realized what was going on, and so began the process of putting her into the brain rehab center she is about to now leave, put her on the correct medications (she now takes 16 pills per day, although some are repeats and one is split over two doses), and eventually brought us to where we are now: reuniting our family, Jenna, Cooper, and myself, all under one roof.

I am currently a little stressed out as Cooper is in the process of being diagnosed with asthma, and I myself had to go home sick from work at about noon on Monday and stayed home yesterday (Tuesday).  I have to give him these lengthy breathing treatments among other things so it is adding to the morning load, plus I am taking Jenna with me to work at the moment (she is here visiting this week, going back Monday), so getting her out the door with Cooper’s situation just adds to it.  But all that having been said I am extremely excited about what is about to happen. 

I have wanted and lobbied for Jenna to come home as soon as possible precisely because Cooper is missing out on having his mother around.  He has been without his mom as a constant and continuing presence since he was 1 year old, and so he never really knew or definitely doesnt remember what she was like before the accident.  And obviously the converse is true as well: Jenna has missed out on *being* that mom presence, and even though I have tried like hell to put them together on as many weekends as possible, there is just nothing like having your mom around every day, every morning and every night that all the weekends in the world could replace. 

So, finally, after all this time, Jenna is coming home.  The medicaid people say she is an extremely unique case in that she wants to be involved with Cooper at all.  They know of only one other case in Indiana where a mother injured like Jenna was injured has wanted to be back with her child or children, and they have handled countless adoptions resulting from those types of situations.  Talk about a tragedy stacked onto a tragedy.

That night six and a half years ago in the emergency room in Birmingham, I got on one knee, put my hand on Jenna’s forehead, and made her the promise that I would see her come through this, come out of it and be with her son again.  That promise is about to be fulfilled in one respect and I re-promise her the other respect every day.  I will see her with her son again, permanently, in a few weeks, and I will see her get through this and come out the other side every day for the rest of our lives.  Funnily enough, six and a half years isnt all that long when you are talking about a severe brain injury.  The biggest gains and recovery should be coming in the next three to four years.  I am looking forward to that!

Well I should have updated this when it happened, but I failed to do so.  A few months back Jenna was moved to her OWN apartment thus working on increasing her independence and autonomy with her eventual return to home as the eventual goal.  It was absolutely fantastic because we got to go visit her every weekend because we got to stay with her, thus avoiding the expense of a hotel.  I was so excited it was ridiculous, and seeing her every weekend was awesome.

Unfortunately, the rehab center declined to renew the lease on the apartment and they returned her to a group setting again.  She will only be there a couple more months but it was a great disappointment to hear that she was being moved back.  There was nothing we could do about it since the rehab center has control over that.  I will leave my bitter comments about Corporate America effing over the little guy  for a fatter bottom line for another venue.

In any event, we *are* preparing to bring her home.  It will be SO nice to have her back again.  We miss her terribly and if this goes the way we all hope it will go, she will have a person to stay with her during the day and take her to therapy appointments.  Most importantly, it will bring this whole thing full circle again.

The accident ripped our family apart, and more than anything I have wanted to put it back together again.  In the mean time I have kept Jenna’s name and image ringing in Cooper’s ears in her absence and taken him to see her as often as is possible.  Mostly for Cooper’s sake because he deserves to have a mommy, and so help me he’s getting his back again.

Like I said right now we are working through the details of bringing her home and setting up the funding so she can be safe at home while I work.  The goal has been October of this year for a while now and we all cannot wait!  It is hard to describe what a joy she is to have around.  Her personality just shines and she is hilarious to boot.

In other news Cooper started second grade today.  I took pictures and videos so Jenna can see it also.  That is one thing I need to do more of, shoot videos of Cooper so Jenna can see more of him, more often.

Work is good, Cooper had fun at his Day Camp all summer, although the last couple of weeks it was so damn hot they spent a lot of the days inside watching movies.  Not what a summer camp is supposed to be about but oh well…

More, later!

WOW.  These anniversaries just slip past me!  This morning I was talking to my boss about the Oklahoma City thing, and I was thinking, hmm there is something else, I am missing something here.  Well tonight we were on the phone with Jenna’s parents and it hit me: holy crap the anniversary is today!

I actually wasnt sure if it was today or five days ago.  When looking back through the blog posts to try to figure it out, I saw some of the posts from the “bad” times, and it makes me so grateful we have come as far as we have.

Jenna is just amazing.  We have been told repeatedly that she will make some of her greatest gains in the seven-to-ten year time frame post-accident, and she is doing so well now, and we are still a year away from that window.  I feel great things coming for us all!

This weekend we are going to go camping with Cooper.  I have spent way too much money on camping stuff and by God we are going to USE it! The only possible problem I can foresee for Jenna in a camping situation is getting in and out of the tent. Her left arm is still very weak/unresponsive after all this time and that will impair her ability to do such crawling-like activity.  But other than that I hope to be doing a ton of camping over the summer.  I remember all our camping trips when I was a kid with great fondness, and I want to do the same thing for Cooper, and Jenna.

Jenna herself is still struggling with the memory situation.  The short-term just isn’t there anymore.  But I have her listening to music instead of just watching TV all day, and am encouraging her to write poems and song lyrics, letters, anything to get the brain working again.  Her dad had an old laptop he wasnt using and I loaded it up with all of her music she used to like, along with a bunch more.  Total of about 65 gigs of music, and then about 20 gigs of Cooper pictures and videos.  We also got her a small desk and set her up with a set of spare computer speakers I had.  She tells me all the time how much she appreciates her little desk setup and the computer.  We dont have an internet connection yet.  Not sure as the rehab center is still trying to figure out what to do about it.

We still go back every two weeks.  We were there a week ago and will be back this coming weekend.  Camping out like I said. Eventually I’m going to get us a nice big inflatable boat we can paddle around in (God knows I can use the exercise) along with a small trailer for my car to help carry all this bulky camping gear. My car is pretty small; I was considering looking for a used volvo station wagon but for now the little trailer idea is just way more cost-effective. I also want to be able to bring our bikes, and the trailer will be good for that too. Jenna actually has a little ride-along bike trailer her parents got a long time ago. Will be a good workout pulling her around whatever campgrounds we go to! EDIT: If I recall correctly, she is able to pedal with this setup as well.

I also signed up Cooper for a summer day camp program here in town.  Six weeks worth.  It seems to be a great little program and is actually cheaper than the after-school care I send him to now despite it lasting all day instead of just a couple hours after school.  I was considering just taking him to work with me to save money but I’d rather spend it and send him out into the summer sunshine where he belongs.  That it is so inexpensive, all things considered, was a big help in making that decision.

I continue to be so grateful that things are turning out as well as they are.  After having nearly lost Jenna, and fighting for so long with the hell of the counter-medicated and uncontrolled bipolar outbursts for the first three years after the accident, it just seems like right now we are turning a great corner in her ultimate recovery.  I am so proud of her and feel fortunate in a sick and twisted way to be a part of it all.  I wish it never had happened, but if it never had happened, we never would have known what it was like to kick its ass so thoroughly.

That reminds me of something Jenna always tells me: She is happy that the accident happened.  My reaction every time she says that is to mute myself because I don’t want to drag her down by telling her how she only feels that way because she doesn’t have an idea of what she has lost.  Her mental capacity is definitely diminished.  She will never do in life the things she may have done before, mostly due to her memory problems.  As much as I hold out hope that those issues will improve, given how utterly brutally she was hit and how completely she/her brain was injured, realistically I know she will never be again what she might have been before.  But her attitude is fantastic, and her sense of humor is not diminished in the slightest.  Her personality is bright and magnetic. It is a very rare person indeed who does not find her immediately charming and a source of bright light in any room she occupies. She is a different Jenna, and in some ways an improved one.  It is a classic take-the-good-with-the-bad scenario. Whenever I think about all she has lost, I have to remind myself, we almost lost her, entirely. And the process of being with her in the coming back from that abyss, through that three years of living hell, to now coming around a corner into a future full of promise and growth and further recovery, has changed me in ways I can only be grateful for.  I now feel the pull of what the future holds like the warm embrace of a long-lost friend welcoming me into their home after a long and harrowing journey getting to their doorstep.

People are murdered, killed in car accidents, etc., every day.  Jenna was almost one of them.  But she survived, wounded yes, but coming back strong, if slowly, and continues to inspire my loyalty to her every moment I think of her.  I am looking forward now to the time when she will finally leave the rehab facility where she is now and re-begin her life again with her little family.  Its going to be good…

EDIT: I don’t know what was going on with my wordpress install, but this post now features paragraphs!

My mom was here for the holidays and she remarked that Jenna seemed to be much better.   Her observations included the fact that Jenna is using longer sentences and just seemed more “there”.  She really is amazing.  Everything I ask her to do as far as her recovery goes, she does.  She used to be such an obstinate character, but now that she is on the good meds, she really is working hard at doing what she needs to do.  I tell her that as long as she never gives up on herself, I wont.  And she just continues to kick so much ass.

The last week she dropped her norelco-style rotary shaver (legs) and kept calling me telling me that she needed a new one (she forgets what she’s told me, in case that is not obvious).  I went ahead and bought her one online, and I called her to tell her about it, and she announces to me that she has fixed her existing one!

This is a girl who was injured so profoundly in her brain that she almost DIED, from that brain injury.  Not a heart attack, or gunshot wound, but an injury to her very identity and capacity to be who she is and was.  She was just about as close to dying from her brain injury as is possible, without actually doing so.  Technically there was one more step of “worse” she could have gone through, then it would have been certain death. And here she is reassembling the shattered remains of her broken electric shaver!

We are still working on her transition home. Jenna is working on the skills she will need once she is back at home with her son, where she absolutely belongs.  I’ve been working on the relationship between mother and son kind of as a third party to it, with Jenna’s name on my lips all the time with Cooper.  But there is no substitute for her actually being there and physically being his mother again.

This all happened when Cooper was only about a year old, so he never really got a firm picture of who his mother was before the accident.  And I can talk about it until my face turns blue but there is never a substitute for the real thing.  We do have a new, different Jenna.  We will never have the other one back again, most likely.  But we love the new Jenna and we are so EFFING proud of her, it gives me shivvers.

Kicking ass and taking names, baby!

Love you Jenna!