Week 1 - Wishing for Quicker Healing and Progress

The doctors basically told us the same thing today. Brianna is stable, her organs are functioning well and her blood chemistry and blood gases (the amount of oxygen and CO2 in her blood) look good. This is all good news. My problem is that I want it all faster. I don't want her laying in a hospital ICU bed looking so critical and missing out on life around her. Of course I don't want her intubated either, and we know she must be sedated and paralyzed for the ventilator until her lungs heal. But the fact that she is not getting worse and has made baby steps of progress is encouraging they say. Baby steps, baby steps...how does one accept them when time has stopped and when life becomes day to day sometimes hour by hour, rather than week by week and month by month?

I am reminded though by John, my mother and my friend Colleen (who stayed with me today) that I need to be glad for all the positives. And I am. It's just our whole situation that makes me heartsick.

But today they decided to turn Brianna onto her back again and she has done well. The plan is to turn her every 24 hours, and it should not be as difficult on her lungs as the first time she was turned. It will also allow her lungs to continue to open in the hopes of gaining ground.

It is going to be a very slow process, and I am prepared to give up as many months or years as necessary to see her recover. It is hard on the whole family though. John stayed by Brianna's bedside all day yesterday so that I could go home, pet the dog, see Trevor, be in our house and do some "normal" things. I fiddled with the automatic sprinkler system with my dad and mom and tried to find a sprinkler head that is lost among the tall backyard grass. Trevor was all smiles and it was so nice to spend more time with him in just a few days.

It's strange to go home and have it not feel like home anymore. It's just a place to park my stuff for a few hours. In fact, about a week and a half ago, I had to write my address down on something and I had to stop and think of what it was. For a few minutes, I had forgotten my home address.

This has been a long journey so far, and it will continue to be one for many months to come. Brianna will be like Rip Van Winkle when she wakes, so much time will have passed. But we are content for now with the baby steps of progress she has made, no matter how small. She continues to get weekly leg massages from the therapists, and we play music for her, talk to her and touch her. And we are glad to think that she is dreaming and pain free while her lungs heal.

Each day is a gift.