02102010

I tried to post last night after crawling into bed, but as soon as I started typing my eyes decided to close and the power in my brain went out. I thought about continuing on anyhow, but knew that could be dangerous…so, here goes!

To start off this lovely post, I’m going to tell a rather gross story. Sorry. WARNING-skip ahead if you have a weak stomach.

Thursday night we went to bad as usual drifting off into a night filled with dreams. Around 4am, I started to hear Basil move around a lot. Our room is always scorching hot at night so I figured he was just uncomfortable from the heat. I know I was. After about 30 minutes of Basil moving around, I hear a really terrible sound. Once my brain was able to connect the dots the sound was not just terrible-but terrifying. You see, it wasn’t the sound of my sweet dog urinating(which would have been bad enough); it was out a different side.

Cale suddenly awakens from his sleep yelling, “It stinks! It stinks!”

Oh. My. Goodness.

Yes, there in the dark of the night in a desert like bedroom, my dog poops. Not just a normal poop either.

The next few minutes went something like you would see out of a sitcom. I was trying not to wake Cale up even more by turning on lights, but I had to get Basil outside and clean up the horrid pile of…uh… while my eyes and mental status didn’t seem to want to cooperate. Cale was being a huge help by letting me know every other minute that it still smelt really bad. In fact, the yelling continued as he covered his face in my pillow and his. When the mess was cleaned up and I climbed back in bed, he still had my pillow; and made it clear that he desperately needed it.

It was quite the adventure and even though I was so tired and really grossed out from the smell that had weaved itself to the heat to form a similar setting like a porta potty in the middle of summer; all I could do was laugh.

A rewind into Thursday…

Its fair week and I love (really LOVE) going on all the rides! I have been going back and forth on how to take Cale, whether I should take Cale, or if it was just a really bad idea still. After lots of thinking and back and forth on my end, Rachel suggested breaking up the days. We wanted to ride rides, but then the next day we could walk around and go to the Rodeo-perfect! So, Thursday I went with Rachel, Sarah, Joe and Beth to tackle all the excitement each ride had to offer. We had a blast, but Rachel and Sarah both had to stop early because of their stomachs. I could have kept going, but to be honest, I really needed water. My head had started to not feel great and it wasn’t like we didn’t take water breaks. We’re just getting old! Haha!

While I was at the fair screaming and laughing uncontrollably, Cale was at home working hard in PT. Mama said he did the elliptical and a whole bunch of arm/back exercises. I haven’t talked to Carley to hear all about it, but at least Mama had good news to report!

Yesterday we had such a good day together. The morning we took things slow because he didn’t have therapy until 2. I had gotten up with Basil and then while Cale was still sleeping I watched part of a movie that was so awesome. I wasn’t able to finish it yet because Cale woke up, but I’ll share more about it later. So encouraging!

Once he was up we both got ready for the day and then hung out. We worked on some word finding and opposites, but it seemed a bit challenging for him which meant it didn’t take long for him to want to be done. We took a little break playing cards and then I grabbed a book that I had been given while we were in Palo Alto and worked with him. It’s for a toddler who is just starting to talk so I wasn’t sure how he would take it now, but I asked if he would just work with me for a bit and then we could play more cards and he did it very willingly. Some words took a lot to figure out, but for the most part he went through them very quickly! The nice thing about the book is that all the words are single and spaced all over the page so it doesn’t strain his vision as much.

Like I promised, after reading we played more cards. Cale had asked what game I wanted to play (knowing that he wanted me to pick Crazy 8’s), I then suggested Go Fish and Cale said no. I said War and again he said no, but this time he added, “I’m not three years old!” We played Crazy 8’s. :)

I’m not sure if I’ve written about this lately or not, so I’m just gonna say I haven’t. Lately I see little windows of Cale being even more aware, more alert, more…um…adult? I had started seeing this when we were in NC still and he was having just little tiny windows of being more aware and awake at that time. I remember that slowly I was seeing those windows of time grow and grow and eventually in CA, those windows had become all the time. A man that I had met in CA and talked to just recently about this had also compared it to opening a curtain. It’s open a little and then will close and then open a little more until one day it’ll be open all the time. Exactly. I’ve been seeing chunks of time that Cale is more with things (still trying to figure out how to describe this to you…) and then it’ll be gone. Those times are starting to get longer and though still very short, the times that he’s really there-in the moment-showing more of “himself” have been so deep and profound. It’s AMAZING!

For therapy yesterday we went to a Neuro Resource center in Richland just to check it out and see what they had to offer. The lady was talking about all the different books and resources they had specific to TBI. Not too long went by and I could feel Cale getting upset. When I asked him if he was ok he said, “No. I want to leave.” That was a point I knew we needed to quickly excuse ourselves, so I checked out a book and video and off we went. Once we were in the car (the curtain was open) I asked Cale if he was mad. He said he wasn’t mad, he was sad. Jamie then took over the conversation trying to pull as much out of Cale in the brief moment we were going to have with his awareness there. He said that it made him sad that he was in a hospital. Jamie asked what he wanted to be able to do again and Cale’s reply brought tears to my eyes. He said, “live.”

Even as I’m typing this the tears have found their way back to my eyes.

She then talked to him about how we’re working for that. He responded in agreement that he is working so hard. The awareness he had that he was an adult that had been injured and that he was indeed working hard every day because work needed to be done was incredible.

And then the awareness faded. Those peeks into his heart and what he’s dealing with is enough to send me to a carton of ice cream, a bath of chocolate and a whole berry pie.

Even more satisfying though- I went to the throne. My heart broke for him as it has so many times and I know God hears every word I speak to him; every cry of my heart; every plea.

Right after getting back from therapy, we grabbed our sweaters (which we did NOT need) and headed to the fair! I knew there was no way that Cale was going to be able to walk around as much as we were going to be with only his cane, but he was refusing to use his wheelchair.

Solution:


Have Joe be in a wheelchair too! It worked perfectly! Even at the house when I grabbed the wheelchair, Cale was asking why and saying no, but there were absolutely no issues once there with both of them in one! Mike was the muscles for the night and did all the pushing. That was so nice with all the bumps and rocks all over!

Here’s the whole clan of us! :)


Cale loved the animals! He wanted to pet every one of them. He was also saying hello to each one and Mike said at one point a little boy told Cale that they don’t talk. I guess Cale quickly replied that he knew that! ;)


Us girls also had some fun…


After walking around for a while checking out all the animals it was time to eat. Cale at that point was done. He was hot, there was a lot of noise and it all just kind of hit him. So, he didn’t touch any of his food. Of course, when Vernon brought the elephant ear, he had to have some of that! Haha! The elephant ear brought enough change and distraction that we were able to keep him in the fun and headed to the rodeo!


The rodeo was exciting to him at first, but again so much stimulation and added was the heat…we had to leave. I was impressed with how great he did do through it all and how even when he was done, he didn’t have a break down…just called a little boy dumb-oops!

Mike and Beth walked with us to the gate and Mike had been pushing him the whole way. When we got to the gate I took over and we said good byes. There was an edge to pavement that I had to get Cale over and at first was struggling so the Police Officer asked if I needed help. I quickly (without thinking) replied, “I’m ok, I just have to use my guns…uh…um…muscles!” It might not have been such an awkward moment if I would have just left it at guns and kept walking, but as soon as I said it and realized I was saying guns to the officer, I started to try to cover it up. Oh my! I get myself in these situations way-too-often! Haha!

And, yes, I was red-beat red.

The fair was a blast, but unfortunately I still have not seen our famous visitors. Maybe I’ll just drive around like a crazy person for 24 hours…I’m pretty sure they keep information of whereabouts a secret because of people like me…guilty.

Shortly after the accident happened, I was looking at the date and knew that Cale was going to appreciate the date! 02-10-2010 He’s a number guy and things like that he always gets a kick out of! In fact, after we started dating he was fascinated by my birthday being 1/2, we started dating 5/10, and his birthday is 9/18. Not only are they all half of each other, they are all 4 months apart from each other. When we married on 3/17 he said we messed everything up. Anyways, I knew the numbers in the date of the accident would be taken as something really neat. So far, the fascination hasn’t been there like I had pictured back in ICU. Last night we were talking about the accident and Cale asked when and where. These are two questions that he asks every time the accident is brought up because he doesn’t believe that it did happen. Well, when I talk him the date, he started laughing and said, “Oh wow!” I typed it up really big so he could see all the numbers and then he started pointing to it and laughing. It was so fun and in a simple way it warmed my heart.

Now it’s time for us to get on with all the fun of today!

Wait! What kind of blog would I have if I didn't include these two rock stars?!