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!

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!

Jenna is doing well.  Still about the same recovery-wise, but I am just so grateful to have her at all.  I’m patiently waiting for things to improve.  Her memory remains the biggest issue, with her physical stuff a close second (zombie stagger, left arm).

Anyway we all hope everyone else is having as much fun as little old us.

-Rob and Family

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abnormal_posturing

This morning I think we made a little progress.  After discussing (sometimes a bit harshly I admit) it at length with her this morning, she called me back a few hours later and read me a whole list of all the little things she had done since our last phone call.  It brought a huge smile to my face because she is actually doing the work that is going to allow her to come home full time, for good.

What I tell her is that her full-time job is to WORK on getting better, not just sitting around waiting for it to happen.  My “spritual journey” has gone full circle through all of this, but one thing has stayed consistent with biblical teachings, and that is that the Bible never says that God helps those who help themselves.  That is a myth and a lie.  The Bible actually says that God helps the helpless.  Jenna is not helpless, so she is on her own.  She can do the work that it is going to take to get her out of the CCS facility and back home with her son where she belongs.

I tell her that I will never give up on her as long as she never gives up on herself.  The moment she does that, I’ll do the exact same thing and just leave her there.  Its harsh but effective.  Today’s little litany of her activity since this morning is evidence of that much.

I love Jenna and will do anything and everything its going to take to get her back home with her son, including kick her metaphorical ass when it is needed.  The beautiful part is Jenna is at the point now where she can rise to the occasion and kick back.

I love this girl!

The house itself is this pretty big old farmhouse, and Jenna got to visit out here last weekend.  It was absolutely AWESOME to have her here. It was a wonderful, peaceful visit over the weekend.  It was a bit of a drag having to go get her on Friday, then take her right back on Sunday, but hopefully we can get longer home visits in the future.

Jenna did very, very well.  The only issue she had was trying (and failing) to remember the layout of the house.  Jaime (new housemate) had a ton of people over to help work on one of the project cars (1989 Helios Blue VW Jetta 16v identical to the one I had in Alabama, and was blasting the music out in the garage.  Jenna and I were sitting outside the garage listening to the music and just hanging out.  There were also a bunch of kids there, and a lot of other activity, all of which Jenna tolerated very very well.

We are going back to visit on Friday the 11th, and hopefully Carbondale isn’t hit in a 8th-anniversary attack.. Something tells me we’ll be safe in the middle of bumblef*ck southern Illy…

She still has some issues to work on, but the major reason why she was/is in the CCS facility was the fact that her bipolar condition blazed out of control after the brain injury.  I lived with this condition for three years, dealing with constantly recycling rages of anger and screaming, until it got to the point where I literally could not take it anymore.  I had been driven into the brinks of insanity myself, from which I thankfully recovered.  It took a good year+ to come back from the brink of hell but here I am.

Anyway the birthday visit was fantastic.  Just about everything is going as best as can be imagined, with minor hiccups along the way.  I am starting a business in addition to working in a not-for-profit law firm that helps people of modest means.  Right now I am just a mostly-unpaid intern but things should change by the end of this month, and I’ve branched out with a side business repairing broken iPods and laptop computers.

Cooper and I are going to see Jenna again next weekend and will be sure to love her as much as possible.  I tell Cooper that our #1 job is to love his mommy.  He is such a sweet little child.  Just an amazing kid.

More later!