Back to School

Well, I figured I'd give just one last update about Rebecca.  Today is her first day back to school.  She's doing great!  Astonishingly, she's just about back to her normal skills.  I can't believe how far she's come; she can even sit up on her own, just like she used to.

She takes more medicine, I do music therapy with her at least once a day, and we just generally try to keep her more active.  Other than that and a few other small changes, we've got Rebecca back.

Back to school time for Rebecca...what an answer to prayer!

Day 26

Well, the day is finally here.  After almost a month, Rebecca will be coming home tomorrow.  Her rehab has gone extremely well, and she's almost back to her baseline skills.  I'm sure that there will be changes to come with having Rebecca back again, but I'm not sure what they are yet.

Thank you, staff at Scottish Rite, for your incredible patience and hard work with Rebecca.  And thank you everyone, for all of your prayers and support!

Day 20

To recap, Rebecca spent 10 days in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit), and this was her 8th day in the CIRU (Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit).  And yes, all of the acronyms are a bit confusing.

Frankly, I'm suprised at how well Rebecca is doing.  I've heard that she's at about 80 percent of her baseline skills (what she was doing before the seizure).  Just a week ago, she couldn't eat on her own, roll around, sit up, yell, or breathe on her own.  Now, she can do almost all of that.  There are a few areas where she's not quite normal, though.  She can't swallow like she was able to.  She can't sit up on her own, but she can stay sitting up.  And she's not rolling around like she used to.  Overall, she's doing fantastic, she's just not as strong as she was before the seizure.

I can't begin to explain how proud I am of Rebecca.  She pretty much has rehab straight through from 8-3 PM.  It's tough, and she gets very tired.  I spent my first day (half day, really) doing rehab with her, and I am so impressed.  My sister is quite a trooper.

Great news: Rebecca will most likely come home next Wednesday!  Thank God that she got into rehab.  And we're so thankful for the incredible staff at Scottish Rite!

Great day, Rebecca!

Day 15

I'm sitting here with Rebecca in the CIRU (Comprehensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit), and she's doing great.  She's still doing better each and every day.  Right now, she's laying in bed, giggling and watching Barney.  Not much has changed, but everyday, she gets to be more and more like herself, at least as far as her usual personality goes.

She is making progress, though.  She can almost stay sitting up on her own, but she isn't able to actually sit up on her own.  Rebecca can swallow foods, but only of applesauce-like consistency.  She's still pretty much on a feeding tube.  She can kick and flail her arms like she always has, but she's definitely not as strong as she was before the surgery.

It's funny, I sit her and think, "Well, she improves just a little bit each and every day."  But when I think back to two weeks ago, it's amazing how far she has come.  And I thank God for that every single day.

To conclude, she's doing very good.  Now keep in mind, as I said before, I'm not the doctor or nurse, and I'm definitely not as informed as my parents are.  But from what I can tell, Rebecca is definitely progressing very well, and hopefully, she's on track to get most, if not all, of her skills back.

Day 14

Yesterday was Rebecca's first day in rehab!  I thank God so much that everything worked out so that Rebecca would be accepted into rehab.  Apparently, it's a pretty popular place at Scottish Rite, and very hard to get into.  But now that Rebecca is in there, we know that she will get the care and therapy she needs to get back to 100 percent.  My prayers are that she will get back most of the skills which she had before the seizure, like her ability to sit up on her own.  As you can see, Sarah came with me and Marjan's mom to the hospital this time.  This was the first time that Sarah was allowed in Rebecca's room, and she had a ball playing in Rebecca's hospital bed.  

As for Rebecca, she's getting better and stronger every day.  She has rehab from 8 AM until 2 PM, so she's obviously really tired after that, as you can see in the picture.  Honestly, I don't know about all of the different kinds of therapy she's receiving each day, but I do know that it's pretty intense.  While I'm being honest, I also really don't know how much of her original skills she will recover after all is said and done.  I guess all I can do is be hopeful and optimistic, and trust that somehow, for some reason, this fits into God's plan for her life.

Right now, as I understand, she's pretty much over the flu, and relatively healthy.  They're just working on getting her skills and strength back to her normal levels.  And that's what will be happening over the next couple of weeks.

Note: I could be wrong or have misunderstood some things along the way here, so I apologize ahead of time.  Plans and details tend to change extremely quickly and often with this sort of situation.  But I'll do my best to keep everyone updated as things happen.

If anyone has any other questions regarding Rebecca, please feel free to ask by leaving a comment on this post.  Thanks!

Day 12

This is my first blog post...ever.  So, forgive me for the lack of blog-etiquette, and please bear with me throughout this whole process.

First, the reason for this blog.  Over the past two weeks, I've been updating Facebook regarding Rebecca's condition, and it's been kind of a pain.  Facebook wasn't really meant for these kinds of lengthy journal entries.  So, I've finally relented to creating a blog, and I'm going to do my best to keep it solely about Rebecca.

Second, I need to get everyone up to speed.  On Friday, December 10, Rebecca had a seizure.  We found out later that it was the result of a high fever due to a recent epidemic of the flu.  Until the next Tuesday, it was a very touch-and-go situation.  Rebecca was intubated (on a ventilator to help her breathe) and flooded with all sorts of medicine to fight the flu and stabilize her vitals.  She kept fighting, and around Tuesday, her fever started to drop and it looked like Rebecca was ridding herself of this nasty bout of the flu.  Starting Wednesday, the doctors started to ween her off of her medication.  She began to wake up, but she really wasn't "awake" by any normal standards.  She was still extremely groggy and unresponsive, but it was definitely apparent that she was beginning to come out of it.  Thursday was a big day; the doctors and nurses removed her breathing tube and really started to bring her off of the medication.  Mind you, Rebecca had been asleep for an entire week, on some pretty heavy pain medication, and just had a breathing tube removed from her chest.  At the very least, this was an extremely uncomfortable day for her.  I imagine that the combined effects of withdrawal, confusion, and a very sore throat aren't very fun to deal with.  Rebecca, being the trooper that she is, really fought through all of these challenges.

Let me take a breather.  For every minute of every hour of every day, the nurses, doctors, and other staff of Scottish Rite Children's Medical Center have been absolutely incredible.  We couldn't have asked for anything more; Rebecca's stay there has been a great one.  Especially the nurses: they have been exceptional in every single facet of Rebecca's recovery.  It's been a great thing to experience.

Anyway, from Friday until yesterday, Rebecca has been waking up a little more each day.  She is stronger, more alert, and more responsive with each new day.  And so we arrive at today.  The picture above is of Rebecca when I first got to the hospital today.  Today was fantastic.  This was the first day which I could actually say that Rebecca is back.  Her personality is back.  She giggled when I tickled her, and laughed at Barney.  She smiled almost the whole time I was there.  When Rebecca looked at me, I could tell that she really recognized me...I don't know, it's really hard to explain.  All I can say is that when I left the hospital, I thought to myself, "I've got my little sister back!"

Let me take another break right here.  Where are my dad and Marjan?  Not to worry, they've done much more than I could ever hope to do as a brother.  They've really showed me throughout this whole ordeal what it means to be an incredible parent.  By example, they've set the bar really high for me...I can only hope that one day, I might be half the parents they are.  With that said, this blog is really just a birds-eye view of what it's like to experience all of this through my shoes.

As of early evening today, they moved Rebecca out of the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and into a normal patient room.  She'll be going through rehab for the next two weeks at least.  But this is awesome news, because the therapists will bring her back to where she was before the seizure as far as her baseline skills are concerned.  So, we don't get to bring Rebecca home for Christmas...hopefully they'll let us bring Christmas to her.

I apologize for this ridiculously long-winded blog entry.  But now you're up to-date, and I'll try to check back in tomorrow.

Let me remind you, the only reason I'm writing this blog is because the huge outpouring of support received from everyone, so keep it up!  Please, please continue to keep Rebecca in your thoughts and prayers!