Jennaishealed.org

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!

Not tomorrow, but soon.  Her birthday visit was awesome, and made it clear to everyone involved that it’s time to prepare for her return!  This is awesome news!!!

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!

for his very generous contribution to the Jenna fund! I should have made note of all the other contributions from other people here but I was keeping track of those on the www.bmw2002faq.com off-topic board…

I have Jenna on the phone right now, and she is doing well. She is talking to a rehabilitation counsellor in an informal chat outside as she has her cigarette. I am having her check her own rehab “session” appointments and take responsibility for her own scheldule, to try to get that 50% attendance record up, WAY up. She has also given me a shopping list of some stuff she wants me to get her, just some bath items, and with Casey’s gift, I can! Thanks again, man!

Jenna just told me that she is very proud of me (awwww!!) and is glad I am sticking around.  Me, too, Jenna (the sticking around part).   She also says things like she is glad that the accident happened, that she prayed for something like this to happen, to “knock her the f*** out.”  There is a kind of innocence there (of what she has truly lost) but also a rememberance of the way her bipolar condition used to plague her moods and cause her so much angst and pain before the accident.  The difference is that before the accident the bipolar stuff was largely hidden, controlled.  Now it explodes onto the surface at the drop of a hat, although that too is also much improved now that she is on all the medications she is on now (zyprexa, elavil, lithium, ritalin, and Im probably leaving some out).  The brain injury combined with the bipolar is truly a double-damned situation and I am so grateful we finally found the meds to control it.  Now we just need to get her better and truly get her her life back, as much as is possible anyway…

Her speech issue seems to come and go. Sometimes she speaks much more rapidly and dynamically than “normal”, sometimes it is that slow, deliberate pattern. Maybe I am imagining the whole thing… In any case, I had two telephone meetings with her case manager and we are working out what the expectations are for when she comes home.

Coming home has been an issue already, since I still suffer the PTSD-like symptoms I have talked about before (I think). The other day I was really having a hard time, crying and just very depressed. The issues we face together are whether to stay together, whether I can take care of her at all and still remain functional myself, etc.

When I dropped her off in Indiana this past summer I was a freaking wreck. In a lot of ways I still am. I had high hopes for the therapy to totally remake Jenna’s ability to handle frustration, but so far it hasn’t worked. She still gets very loud very fast, although with her medications she calms down a lot faster than she did when we were in California in the first half of ‘07.

More later…