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July 11, 2005
Oak Tree That Fell On Our House at 6:30 AM, July 11
11:30 PM, July 11
I drove back to Chattanooga about 3:30 PM this afternoon, and it took me about 30 minutes to go less than 3 miles between where the Shepherd Spinal Center is on Peachtree Road and the entrance to 75 N off of Northside Drive is located. I was going down Collier road and ran into a road block due to the many trees that had fallen across the road the night before and then detour that took me to Northside Drive was also strewn with fallen trees all along the route.
a bad storm had blown into atlanta and the surrounding area last night and at one point a tornado warning was issued. that meant all the patients at shepherd had to leave their rooms and move to the nurses station to wait for the warning to be reduced to a watch. due to the veracity of the winds and the down pour of rain i wasn't surprised at all by the downed trees i saw as i was leaving atlanta. rather, the surprise came when i pulled up in front of my house and saw the extent of the damage done to our house by the tree that fell on it early this morning.
it actually could have been so much worse. a chimney on the front of the house, that crumbled above the roof line when the tree landed on it, also kept the tree from sinking down any deeper into the house, because below the roof line the chimney remained intact all the way to the dirt floor in the basement below the house. if the chimney had not held the tree up, given it's excessive weight, it would have most likely gone all the way through to the first floor where our house and dog sitter, kayb, was sleeping. we all just have so much to be thankful for, even in the midst of the realization that we are, in a very real sense, homeless. actually, we are beginning to feel more like refugees than homeless people.
part of the reason that we feel that way is that we have experienced yet more temporariness at shepherd's today. again, due to reconstruction, they moved asher, not only to another room for the 3rd time, but to an entirely different floor. his room is now on the third floor, but all of his therapy, as well as meals are still on the second floor. in between therapy sessions, when he is put back to bed for rest, he will now be put into a room on the second floor with 4 other patients who have also been moved up to the third floor. it is really feels kind of like he is in a refugee camp during this part of his day.
gloria, hadrienne and i were discussing this before i left this afternoon to come home and the more we talked about it the more it seemed to be ok. you know, asher is at shepherd because it is one of the best spinal and brain injury hospitals in the country. it is not a hotel, and we are not on vacation. his getting moved around is an inconvenience, i guess, if you want to look at it that way, but it doesn't seem to affect the over all excellent care that he is getting there. so, we really don't have anything to complain about, it's just that things beyond our control have a way of making us think that we can somehow make them better or be able to control them if we will just get a bad attitude about them or complain enough. it is not that i don't have any problems doing my share of complaining or getting very cynical, it is just that with all that we have been through since asher was injured i just don't have the strength or the will power to go very far down that path. i have found that if i will really take the time to find a positive spin on the situation i don't seem to dwell on it any more and can get on to the next obstacle at hand, like our house getting partially destroyed. believe me it is far better to have this happen to your house while you are temporarily not living in it than if you were.
as far as getting the house back in a condition that will make it livable for us to move back into when asher is through with his rehab, there is no way i am going to think about that right now. all i can think about is being back in atlanta with asher, gloria and hadrienne. i pray that i will be able to go back, if only for a day, before too many days go by. asher is communicating better every day and we are learning, sometimes multiple times a day, new things that he is able to say and do. for instance, today i discovered that asher can add, subtract and multipy. that was absolutely amazing to discover. he is also revealing to us that he still has his dry sense of humor about it. humor has always been one of the really enjoyable traits that i have enjoyed about asher since he was really little. before his accident, he could always make us all laugh, seemingly, without even trying, and i can't tell you how wonderful it is that he has started doing it again.
gloria also told me (this happened several days ago when i was out of town, but she just told me today) that asher's vision is now 20/25. i couldn't believe this when she told me, because less than a week ago asher was having a hard time seeing 2 inch letters 2 feet away. they were really blurry. i am just astonished that his vision is now as clear as it was before he was hurt.
the nurse also told us that, because he is communicating so well and able to respond to directions that he is now between a 5 and a 6 on the rancho scale (the scale that measures the level of coma you are in). what is even mor amazing is that he seems to have passed right through level 4 with very few of the characteristic effects from it. this is usually the level that most patients are very angry, frustrated and even violent. they also, quite often, use a great deal of profanity. i am just so thankful that both he and us seem to have been spared these effects.
as i think i mention yesterday, asher had to have his feeding tube replaced today. there were a few feared complications to this procedure that the doctor that performed it was anticipating, but none of them occurred. he was able to take asher's old feeding tube out and put a new one in through a brand new hole that they made in his stomach. one of the things he feared was that the old hole had some infection in it, but as it turned out the old hole was actually in a lot better shape than he thought.
please pray for asher to be able to each solid food soon. like really soon. all he kept saying to me this morning was "taco bell" and "chalupa." i don't mean just a couple of times either. it must have been over 20 times. that was just so heart breaking to have to tell him that he would still have to wait just a little while longer. he is really having an hard time accpeting that, though. he is to the point where he wil hardly even look at his soup-food (what he now calls pureed food) any more.
you know when i think about asher's progess and all of you who have been so faithfull to continue to pray for us, our house getting caved in just doesn't seem that serious. i don't mean to sound flipant about it, but i just continue to remain so thankful to God for not only giving us back our son, but for each day that i get to spend with him since it happened. i am also very thankful for each day that we, as a family, get to spend with him too. gloria and hadrienne are 2 of the most phenominal people i have ever met, and even though i have always known this, it has been as a result of this situation that i have come to fully appreciate that fact rather than to take it for granted in the ways that i tend to do with those i am the closes to and love the most. which really makes me so very sad when i think about it.
Lord bless you all for helping to make, what would be completely unbearable under other circumstances, bearable because of the continue fervency of your prayers.
thankful to be thankful,
andy mendonsa
| By Andy Mendonsa | 11:19 PM
