More Hospital

Finally busted out! And here is the rest of that story.

Sunday July 19 - Helen and William arrived  having driven the 600+ miles in 2 days this time with a quick visit to have a look at a university on the way. Helen teaches virtually and of course has to juggle her schedule because she does not have vacation.

William had finished his summer employment that week. On Thursday 7/16 he did his part when all the interns in this program through the Vanderbilt University gave a presentation. We are so proud of him.

They came to see Papa and of course wanted to help but I also wanted William to have as much “cousin time” as possible at least in their first week of their visit. 

Sarah and Wade made that possible too. He helped his cousins with their bin-cleaning business when they needed to be driven to those places. He is 16 and has his driver license!

William also wanted to have time with Papa. They had fun playing cards in Papa's hospital room and I could leave to take care of something which needed attention. 

By now James was on the 4th floor in the In-house Rehab and every evening we would get a schedule for the next day. He had 3 or 3 1/2 hours of 3 different kinds of therapy every day. I could see how quickly he got better in some areas. 

Helen spoiled her father with chocolate. 

In the beginning I was not allowed to move James at all. He really needed a hair cut though. It makes him feel better. On Saturday 7/25, when not much was going on in the hospital, an OT was very happy to go outside with us to take care of it. It was a lot of fun for all three of us. 

Sarah had a birthday that week but so much was going on that it was celebrated a few days later. We wanted to have a bit of family time all together so I asked whether we could use the big room where James and I had to go once for a group meeting. 

It was ok to sing to Sarah and have some birthday cookie. In the hospital ... of course no candles.

I could not resist to share the next couple of photos. On Monday 27th I had to run home for something and look who was visiting our front yard. It was fun to watch for a fleeting moment.

This week Sarah and her family were gone to the beach with Wade's family. Helen (and some days also William) were sleeping in their house to take care of the animals (2 dogs, 1 cat, 2 lizards and 1 fish). They also love animals but they had to get used to especially Coopers temperament. 

While in the hospital James got visited by 4 different service dogs. 

Three weeks in the hospital. Comming and going at all different hours of the day. For several days we also had heavy downpours. Depending on the hour the parking lot was full or almost empty. Going home I always had to think where my car might be parked. Sometimes I needed some extra steps to find it which was probably good for me. Sometimes the sky was extra pretty.

On Friday the 31st Helen and William had to drive back home again. So the Thursday was my last chance to spoil him a little. It is tradition that we have an all-you-can-eat lunch at Sushi Masa. He is smiling! We both liked it.

Afterwards we went to the Science Museum. That too is tradition when William is visiting. Unfortunately this time only one time. We have a membership so at some previous visits we would go several days in a row. Special this time was an exhibition called "Survival of the Slowest" or "slow but steady"

I kept the stickers from that visit on my car dashboard. You know how much we love our family and of course we are missing those we can't see very often.

Good news is of course that they got home safely. 

Sunday James had his last therapy lessons. I am so proud of him. 

The only thing really hampering his progress is his left arm. After the "minimal invasive procedure" they did in the hospital in the first week he could not use his left arm. Something happened to a nerve during his placement. We are happy though that it steadily got better. Steadily but of course to slow for us.

Friday Helen and William gone. Sunday Sarah and Family are back. She came with the boys to visit Papa and show their beach findings. 

While she stayed with the twins to keep Papa company, I took Caleb to our house. He wanted to clean our trash can and the recycling can. He did an amazing job. And he did it so happily.

This was all three boys' summer job. Recently they celebrated their 100s bin. And it seems to continue past the summer vacation time. They have already more requests.

Monday August 3 - THE BIG DAY!

James got discharged. 

(This photo was taken especially for my niece Maren)

We are happy. And now a week later we are even happier. 

The discharge meeting with the doctor made us quite scared for the first night. And that is all I say about it. We were able to set up an appointment with wonderful urologist Dr Rollins for which we had to drive a bit out of the way. We went home on cloud 9.

Again, prayers have been heard. We have to give it some time and all will be good again. 

We are grateful to many caring people and OUR LORD!

Trip Home took several Days

Wednesday July 8 - Time to go home.

We did not have to haste like some other fellow travelers or get up at 2 am to go to the airport. We finished vacating the cabin and had a leisurely breakfast. Taxi came at the ordered time and brought us to Campanha Train station. 

Of course we were a bit early but found a waiting room. 

Those monitors show you closer to the time what platform to train will be to get on. Our time was 9:45 am but when it suddenly showed up on it, it said 9:40 am platform 8 and we felt we needed to hurry a bit. 

Well, I wrote on the bottom of a previous posted blog (Trip Day 13 B) that we had something happen. Before this sounds too scary I better add here that everything is sorted out now and ok. At this point I just say it in a nutshell: When the trip ended and we were leaving the ship on Wednesday, we took a taxi to the train station in Porto to go to Lisbon for a night in a hotel and fly out Thursday. In the station while going to platform 8 James lost his balance and fell backwards on the escalator. It was one of my scariest moment in my life. The escalator was stopped, help came and eventually an ambulance which took us to a hospital.

You might find it strange that I even took photos but I had nothing else to do. Before the ambulance arrived somebody from the station (the man in black) had a first aid kit and bandaged James up as good as he could. Because he had just started the week before we left home on a blood thinner he bled a lot. Sitting still he seemed ok.

Everybody was so kind, helpful and understanding. They loaded me and the luggage also into the ambulance. 

The hospital. 

In the emergency room they bandaged him and took X-rays and a head scan. Nothing bad was detected but Portuguese protocol is that they need to keep you because they only can release you after a second head scan 24 hours after the accident. 

Thursday July 9

Yeah! Good news. Get dressed and get going. He was discharged. We had to get our luggage which was kept in the hospital's police room. I must say that EVRYBODY was so nice and helpful with us. Even those which didn't speak English tried. 

James had to sit a while in the wheelchair in front of the hospital until I managed to get an Uber driver to bring us to Lisbon. I'ts about 200 miles on toll roads. Finally a really nice immigrant from Brazil (Hugo) with an electric car took the job. He didn't speak any English but was very nice and used his smartphone to translate. He told us beforehand that he had to stop halfway to charge up because of the distance and it would take about 20 minutes. That suited us well because we needed something to eat and drink.

Hugo was also very nice. At the hotel (near the airport) he run in to get a wheelchair. Since James could not walk Hugo was very helpful to transfer him from car to chair and wheeled him up the ramp. I had let the hotel know the day before that we would need the room one day later than booked (and paid already) so of course there was a discussion and we had to pay a difference but we found that acceptable. They had a buffet dinner which we tried but neither one of us was very hungry.

Friday July 10

The night in the hotel was a challenge but we managed. I was able to change our flight tickets to one day later too but I was worried because we didn't have any seats assigned and when I wanted to check in online there were none available and I could see a waiting list with many names so we wanted to be at the airport in good time. Breakfast was included in the hotel and we had a little bit but again didn't take much time. 

The hotel shuttle driver was very nice and helpful again. Too other passengers were also very patient until we were situated.

I had requested assistance from the airline and when we arrived at the airport there just happened to be somebody from a wheelchair put in a car and our shuttle driver leaped to catch the 2 assistance persons with the chair. 

Another two people which were kind and helpful. They could not have been any nicer and check-in went well too. That lady said right away that there were no assigned seats and I explained the whole situation. I asked whether an upgrade was possible. Yes, for $599 each. I asked whether flight points could be used and she looked again. Oh yes, no problem. We got wonderful seats in business class. 

Everything from there on seemed now easy. I did not have to worry any more. The assistance people took care of us. Security: skip the waiting line. Passport control: skip the waiting line. Waiting across the gate at a table in a cafe. Skip the lane to be taken into the plane. James gets asked whether he can walk to se seats ... no ... so they transfer him to a wheelchair which fits into airline aisle. 

Landing in Washington Dulles. We had cancelled the connecting flight to Richmond ... except the check-in lady didn't really cancel it. We had some issues with the luggage which had to go on but the assistant helped to sort things out.

Sarah and Caleb were waiting for us at Washinton Dulles and drove us to our house. They had brought James' old wheelchair from a previous accident but had already noticed that rubber pieces were coming off the wheels. 

OMG we really noticed it wherever we wheeled him too in the house. 

Saturday July 11

James and I did ok during the night and during the morning too but I was worried what to do next. Our girls were so worried too. Helen was sorry she was so far and could not come right away but Sarah of course is local. No way I could leave James alone to go food shopping. All day of course I was thinking how to proceed next. James could stand up and sit down with great pain but not really walk. Going to the bathroom was a nightmare. 

During the FIFA England football game I decided he needed to be checked out more HERE (USA), called 911, the ambulance came and took him to Parham Hospital which is a great Orthopedic one (where he had his hip bone fixed about 2 years ago). 

Sarah had asked whether I remembered whether the scan in Portugal was "whole body" and I was pretty sure that it was only the head and the body had been x-raid. 

I got the same question in the emergency room and they took a whole-body scan. This time they found two fractures, one of them being the tailbone but will heal and most likely not need surgery. Because of the blood thinner we had worried about other things and are greatly relieved. So he was admitted. He is in very good hands. 

Sunday

Caleb was gone to a camp but the twins were back and they were very eager to see their Papa. Of course a hug from them made us feel better too.

PT has started and he seems to get better already during the week. Maren saw the next photo and called him "Big Bird" with his yellow socks.

He even feels like playing cards sometimes.

Later in the week they took another scan and decided that he would be a good candidate to have a minimal precidure done to fix the tailbone. Of course I don't know what it is called but it is something with cement/glue. They did that on Friday. On Saturday he was moved from floor 2 to floor 4 which is inhouse therapy. He enjoyed that he was finally allowed to eat pizza.

So, I think I am ending this blog here. Of course all the photos which I took and posted are were James smiled or at least looked ok. There were moments I don't ever want to repeat again. All I can say to all of you: please be careful! Something can happen so fast. One little missed step can change your plans. Be careful on escalators, especially with luggage. Etc. etc.

It is Wednesday today. The last days it was some steps forward, some steps back. I really don't want to get into details. We all have those. But we appreciate all the prayers from our friends and family and even strangers. So many people were and still are so kind and helpful. It restores your believe in humankind. 

THANK YOU, LORD!