Jennaishealed.org

Best part is I get to go get her and bring her back to Indy for five days.  Due to medicaid rules, she can’t be away from the facility for more than five days at a time, and only on special occasions like holidays and the like…Anyway, I’m cleared (from work) to go get her this coming Tuesday, then I have to have her back in Carbondale no later than Saturday at midnight (I’ll really have to have her there by bedtime which is about 9-10pm as her evening-time meds knock her out pretty fast, plus I gotta four-hour drive back to Indy that night).<p>Ima leave at about 4am Indy time to get there about when she should be waking up, then bring her back to Indy by about lunchtime or early afternoon anyway so that we have the rest of the day to hang with Cooper.  If I could rig his carseat to recline more so he could sleep in the car, id consider bringing him, but the car (1991 BMW 325i) is pretty small (and his seat is pretty huge) and there’s not much room as it is.I’m excited!

Ok.  Must. Update. More.Been for at least two more visits since last update.  She’s doing pretty well.  The time before the last time, I got there and she acted like I had never been there before.  She just didn’t remember me ever being there.  It was pretty disturbing to say the least since I’m there at least twice a month.  But she seemed to remember once I prompted her a little bit.Some parts of her memory seem to be improving.  She seems to remember the hotel room number better each time we stay in a new room.  Of course the room number changes each time but these last two times she seemed to have far less trouble remembering the number when she’d go out to have a smoke.OH GOD I WISH SHE COULD/WOULD STOP SMOKING!Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE smokes at her little apartment house, staff and other patients, so it would be extremely hard for her to stop while she is living there.  I’d say impossible, knowing Jenna’s personality.My mom is here in town and we went to visit Jenna for a long weekend over the Fourth holiday, and we had an awesome time with Cooper.  We went to chuck-e-cheese, saw a lot of fireworks (midwesterners KNOW how to blow stuff up!) and overall had a great time.She had a couple of mild “outbursts” but nothing serious, like it used to be.  More later!

Went for a quick visit today with Cooper and Jenna’s parents.  Bittersweet as I immediately began missing her as soon as we left.  It would almost be better not to go than to go for such short visits.  Next week ill be going back for the weekend, without Cooper.  Time for some mommy-daddy alone time!

First of all, spammers, you suck and its hopeless.  I don’t know if you read English or not, but give it up already.

Anyway, Cooper and I went to see Jenna for the extended weekend, and had a lot of fun.  It is so nice to have the little family together.  Profoundly nice.  Cooper got to play in the hotel pool on Saturday, we went to a soggy castle park on sunday, and went to the movies before we had to leave on monday.

Jenna’s memory seems to be improving in small subtle ways, and her mood is awesome now.  A whole world’s difference between now and the living hell that was three to four years ago.

I continue to work on the Cooper-Mommy relationship as much as possible, keeping him as close to her as I possibly can, given the circumstances.  Its a fine line between explaining to him the situation and making him understand what is going on, and bumming him out with the profound loss we are dealing with which even I do not understand fully yet.  (Mostly I just tell him that we need to love Mommy as much as we can.) For her part, Jenna still asks me what is different about her and says she likes her new situation just fine.  It kind of makes it better but kind of makes it suck worse.

I think she is almost ready to come home, but I am still working on getting my own life together careerwise.  I am working one job now and will start another one next month, but unfortunately both are under-paid to say the least.  Ive found that the huge gap in my resume since the accident to now has been a major impediment and the only way to overcome it is with personal connections.  Personal connections I had to literally form out of thin air.  But its happening, and hopefully in the next few years some prosperity will take place and the grinding poverty of the last many years will be a faint memory.

Cooper and I left plainfield at 7am to pick up Jenna as early as possible, and then swift her away to Paducah, Kentucky, home of the only Chuck-e-cheese within 100 miles of Carbondale.  We got there at about 2pm local time and left at about 8, maybe later.  so at least six hours of Cooper entertainment.  I felt guilty because Cooper was having to miss a little friend’s birthday party (Hi Carson!) so that we could come visit Mommy, hence the pizza mouse excursion.

When we got to Jenna’s little housing unit, we found out she was at a physical therapy session.  So we got back into the car and hauled it over there, so that Cooper could see Jenna doing her therapy.  Plus, Jenna loves to “show him off.”  So we did that, stopped back by her housing place to pick up her meds, and then hit the road to Paducah.

Jenna handled the noise (so much screaming!!) and activity very, very well.  She and I had salads and Cooper had an individual pizza (although I made him eat some broccoli).

Car hit 156,000 miles somewhere in there, and the oil level light came on right as we were leaving Indy.  A quart of Mobil 1 20/50 fixed that… took the whole quart, which was surprising as last time it went 5000 miles without using any oil.  it must like synthetic more than conventional oil (running royal purple 10/40, and I would have topped off with RP but the store only had 5/30)…

We are staying in DuQuoin again, this time by choice.  The Fairground Inn up here is far nicer than the cheap motels in carbondale or marion, and far cheaper than the nice hotels in either other locale.  Plus: free breakfast.