Jennaishealed.org

Friday was our sixth wedding anniversary, which we celebrated over the phone. (Anyone who is following this knows Jenna is still in the rehab hospital in Carbondale, IL, while I am still in Alabama working on our old house.) The sad part was I called her later that night and she did not remember the earlier phone call.

In a familiar refrain, she told me that I was just using her injury against her (making up the earlier call and lying about it). She still doesn’t know how injured she is, and in a sense refuses to believe it. I don’t know what to do in these situations except to insist on the truth and hope that her memory and sense of things catches up with reality at some point.

We are actively working on her issues still, just over the phone instead of face to face. I bought two copies of “A Brilliant Mind” which premises itself on the idea that if you engage your brain memorizing words, your brain will create new pathways and even new brain cells trying to learn all the new words. So we go over the lists over the phone, and hope for the best.

Lately I have been having trouble putting my thoughts down, in any form, much less this one. Otherwise I might be updating this more often. I am also in the process of updating my resume and writing cover letters for possible employers up in Indiana. I am very apprehensive about this process as anyone might be. But I have to just do my best to put myself out there and see if anyone wants to take me. The problem is that I want to get back into my legal career which I had abandoned right after law school, and my resume since then isn’t exactly spotless. Trying to explain all that, the whys and whats, is daunting a task as any.

We are trying to wrap things up here in Alabama finally. These past nine months have been truly a journey. I havent documented much of it here, but there has been a ton of drama behind the scenes. I had another breakdown of sorts, and even spent the night in jail back in September, followed by a couple of days in the hospital.

To this day, if I try to think about the entirety of what has happened to Jenna, forgetting about myself entirely, it causes instant uncontrolled weeping. It happens on the phone with her, and she gets p.o.’d at me because I’m not saying anything, just silently trying to hold it in. One thing that really sets me off is when she talks to Cooper on the phone, then talks to me, and doesn’t remember anything about the conversation with Cooper. Its almost as if she is alive and living, but isn’t allowed to keep any of it for herself. It just passes by her and she has to let it go by, retaining next to nothing of it.

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…

We have an appointment to talk further on monday. Should be interesting. It was hard at first to get ahold of him but good things come to those who wait..

I asked Jenna what she wanted to say on her new website, and she said “Have a good day, and then f*ck off!” (You have to know this girl to “get” her.. hehe) She is still my punk rock girl. For v-day I sent her a big teddy bear that says “Sweetheart” on a v-day heart it is clutching, as well as a card and some Ferrero Rocher candies. She got it all last week, so she had her V-day a bit early. There has been a lot of talk among us about Jenna and I splitting up, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. I debated it on several levels, in terms of my own sanity and ability to function as well as issues we were having before the accident happened. But for now at least, we are sticking together: even tho she is about 500 miles away physically I still try my best to be there for her via phone and stuff I send her….

I ask that everyone who is of the praying type or inclination to please pray for my wife Jenna who was involved in a brutal car accident last night at about 11pm. I just came home from the hospital for a shower and then we’re going back.

A brief list of the damage includes broken neck (non-displaced aka no spinal damage), cracked head with attendant internal brain injuries (two hematomas– they are monitoring the pressure in there), two collapsed lungs, lacerated spleen, lacerated liver, ruptured bladder, and pelvis broken in two places.

The biggest issue right now is how long she wasnt breathing at the scene and whether the physical brain injury (SUV (’yota four runner) T-boned the car Jenna was riding in as passenger, on the passenger side) will cause permanent damage or the extent thereof. I just saw the car (’95 Saturn) trying to find the house keys and it is amazing that she wasn’t killed instantly. The entire passenger side is collapsed leaving about 3″ between the door panel and the center console, which itself is pushed over a good 6″…

Anyways, i am not a praying type but i’ve been doing it continuously since i got the phone call last night. Please pray for her, send positive vibes, etc,… everything helps. Thanks to you all, this community is part of our lives and … we can both use the support right now.

-Rob, Jenna and the mini Cooper (13 months old this friday)