Day 146 - Flower Power

We went to Jan's floral class final on Wednesday, which is actually just a party where the classes made the floral arrangements. It was at a house downtown known as the Greer House. It was built in 1906. We took the grand tour. It is a very interesting home. The folks that live there are very interested in preserving the history of the house.

I finally got tired of waiting for Bilkmore to call me back and called earlier in the week. I spoke to the same patient advocate, which won't really amount to much, but it makes me feel better. Cheaper than therapy. Plus, as long as I'm disputing things, I'm not going to pay them, especially for such shoddy service and poor care.

It is still a few weeks before the plastic surgeon would want to look at Jan's forehead. I'm hoping something like laser resurfacing can be done as an outpatient procedure. I'm not sure that will fill in the divots or not, though.

The doctor had gloves on when he removed the halo with his assistant but the nurse never had gloves on any time she tightened the halo. No wonder Jan's pins became infected, which have made the scars I've posted in earlier posts. Most people only have scars the size of pencil tips but Jan's are deep and the size of pencil erasers.

Day 143 - Wii Work Out

I had some reward dollars from one of the big chain stores that were expiring. After last Friday's PT sessions, we went to the store and bought a Wii Fit. It is supposed to help with balance and strength, two things Jan needs to work on. I'm going to count it as a Mother's Day present!

So far, the whole family has played with it. My Wii age started at 51, then went to 55, 45, 38 and then 32. I'm not sure of the value of the Wii age but it is a yardstick to compare results by.

Jan is really good at the hula hoop, initially beating Tessa's high score. The game does require specific activities that raise your heart rate. Time will tell but preliminary results are encouraging.

Late last Sunday, but well before dark, Jan drove to the grocery store with me and back. She says it still pulls and causes some slight pain to look left and right but she is trying. The bad news is the PT guy says she should not drive. I respect his opinion but by the same token, she needs short trips to build her confidence back. Heck, she still has more neck mobility than half the old folks driving today! The doctor just told her not to drive with the collar.

Day 140 - The Road Less Traveled

Twenty weeks ago today, it all went wrong. My curiosity got the best of me and I rode over to the accident location on my motorcycle last weekend. I had to look around, to help me understand. The GPS coordinates are N37 17.239 W86 19.229 if you are the least bit curious.

Jan has expressed no interest and even stated she doesn't want to revisit the site. I can't blame her.

This is the view of the road right before the infamous curve. There is a long straight before the curve. It appears we made it part of the way through the curve before it got out of shape.

The mailboxes in the upper right, just to the left of the tree, is where the gravel in the road came from. Click on any of the pictures to see the enlarged version.

We were only four miles away from my Dad's house, even less as the crow flies.

This is the same place but from the other side of the road at the intersection of Highway 238 and W. Vincent Road.

The next picture is of the road and the driveway. The late hour, similar to the lighting on a late fall evening, casts shadows where the gravel is on the road. It hasn't rained for several days and there is still gravel in the road. From the dispersal pattern, it may be pushed onto the road when vehicles exit the driveway.

We had already started the skid before the "School Bus" sign but had not left the road. We never touched the sign but I can't even remember it. We never even got close to the outside guard rail. I doubt we even crossed the center line except when the skid started.

I learned early on in my driving career, before the advent of ABS brakes, that if you are skidding, you have to ease off the brakes to regain control. I doubt even ABS brakes work well once the vehicle has turned sideways.

Last, we have the final resting place of the little red Mazda Miata. There is now a limb from the ice storm in pretty much the exact spot the car came to rest. The grass has grown up, hiding the ditch but it nicely defines the drive that leads off into the woods.

Heading back to Bowling Green, I drove this road very carefully. Even so, I did not feel the least bit afraid of this particular strip of blacktop. I am not superstitious and don't believe in fate.

As Jan has noted more than once when she expresses her trepidations about returning behind the wheel, I crashed the Miata and then had to drive an hour to Nashville. Then, a mere 15 hours later and with no sleep to speak of, had to drive her home in the halo.

People keep telling her she was lucky. I would have to disagree. Lucky would have been to have never had the accident. A bit less lucky would have been to have damaged the car and walked away, as I did. Lucky would have been getting an all-clear diagnosis at the first hospital. Lucky would have been getting a good doctor at Bilkmore. Lucky would have been getting a sympathetic and effective nurse practitioner. Luck had nothing to do with it. Sure, it could have been worse but it could have gone so much better. I think this accident is the antithesis of luck.

Oh, Bilkmore still hasn't called back from the Day 126 report. Anyone surprised? They do send bills, though. No luck there!

However, the drier is fixed and so quiet we can hardly tell it is running if there are no buttons pinging around in the drum.

Day 136 - Dry As A Bone

Jan has had two more physical therapy sessions since last time. TENS with heat then exercises and ice. The PT guy says her posture looks better. The changes are subtle and I don't notice the changes. Kind of like you don't notice your hair growing.

We are looking for a profile picture to see how her posture is now compared to before the accident to get some measure of what we are working with. Here's a picture from 2006 that was taken for our 20-year vow renewals. Not sure it shows a lot but it is the only one I can find.

She hasn't driven any more since the one short trip to Sam's but I keep prodding her to see if she wants to try a short trip here or there.

After Jan's most recent trip to physical therapy, we arrived home. Clothes were in the dryer so I went to start it. It sounded funny, all to quiet. Upon closer examination, the belt broke and the drum doesn't turn.

As I type this, the dryer is in a state of severe disassembly, scattered all over the utility room, awaiting the procurement of a new belt. The bright side of this affair is the new level of cleanliness. After 15 years of lint build-up, it is now as clean as new.

I suspect it will work better with a new belt as the old one had been shedding material for quite some time. I had no idea what the black powder under it was when we moved almost three years ago until now. Once inside of it, I could tell the belt had frayed, leaving a fine black residue all over the inside of the dryer.

Day 133 - On The Road Again

It is 19 weeks since the accident and Jan drove for the first time since December 14th, 2008. It wasn't far or fast but she drove from my work to Sam's Club, which is maybe half a mile. She was nervous, even a little anxious, but did fine. I don't know that she will be driving to work any time soon but a little progress is still progress.

PT is going well and she gets through it mostly pain-free. He adds a new exercise each visit and she is supposed to do them a few times a day between PT visits. She does the TENS and ice at the end of her visit lately. Sometimes she does the TENS first but ice is always the last thing.

Her pain level fluctuates but she manages it with Tylenol and Advil. She complains about her sleep not being restful as well. I'm not sure what we can do about that.

We've been trying to find a summer vacation destination. Cancun, Mexico was our preferred destination since it has a beach and scuba diving. I'd found a nice place and cheap airfare but the $200 round trip airfare was short-lived. It has more than doubled. Florida is looking like the next viable option since we would drive there.

Day 130 - Rehab After One Week

Jan has been getting rehab every other day for a few days now. Things are going well but the progress is slow. The physical therapist's view is that it should not hurt. She can stretch but should not cause pain. She has added a breathing exercise and a pushing the chest out exercise. She has been doing these exercises daily along with getting two to three miles of walking in every day.

There are several people that have appointments at or around the same time as Jan. We've gotten to know them in a casual sense. Everyone is laughing and cutting up. One guy had a knee replacement, another has a prosthetic below the knee and several receive treatments for things that aren't as obvious.

Everyone seems to really like PT guy. Jan and I like him, too! A friend's daughter works for him. She's much more talkative at work than I've ever seen her at church or out anywhere else.

Not much of an update tonight. Still no callback from Bilkmore. Surprised?

Day 126 - 18 Week Journey

It has been 18 weeks since the accident, almost seven since the halo came off and things are slowly returning to normal. She rarely wears the collar but tends to carry it with her just in case.

Yesterday she had a haircut by her good friend that came and cut her hair while in the halo. The short hair that has grown in where she was scrubbed bald is now about two inches long. It sticks up a bit. You can also see blond hairs around the rear pin sites where I was treating it with hydrogen peroxide.

After the haircut, she had her night guard altered to keep her teeth set when she sleeps. It helps her TMJ. I noticed she does not move her neck when she turns to look left or right. She turns her whole body. She can move her neck, she just hasn't started to do it again. Hopefully, PT will improve that.

Another oddity was when she was reclined in the dental chair, her head doesn't lay back on the headrest. That is probably from her halo forcing her head so far forward. It didn't help her posture at all, either.

Since she has started PT and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to harm her by Bilkmore, I've been dealing with the patient advocate office again. The doctor admitted that the halo should have been put on by two people. That and the fact that the NP would not make any attempt to improve the situation and scared her more than she helped is fuel for my campaign against Bilkmore. Allowing a second year resident to perform a surgical procedure on Jan unassisted and unsupervised was terrible, allowing the NP to compound it was insulting!

I wish I had more to report on the Bilkmore issue but guess what? They haven't called me back in more than three days. The problem of returning calls by Bilkmore people is chronic. Completely unacceptable.

As a side note, I watched an episode of Fox's Fringe titled Inner Child that originally aired on April 7th. It is an X-Files like show and they used a halo with the vertical bars as part of a prop device. To someone familiar with them, it was obviously a halo ring and bars.

Day 123 - First Physical Therapy Visit

Wednesday, tax day, was Jan's first day for physical therapy. It was pretty easy. He showed her an exercise she can do now called the "I don't know and I don't care." She needs to lift her shoulders up, the don't know part, and to try to squeeze her shoulder blades together.

She only had heat and electrostimulation yesterday and it did make her feel better. She still tired out early. The visits are Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the time being.

Tuesday was her return visit to the heart doctor. She was really worried about it the whole day before her appointment. She took a half valium before the trip and it helped. There was a two hour wait because the doctor had an emergency pace maker procedure.

He explained her echocardiogram and said it was fine. Her valves are good and he mentioned, only because it was on the report, that there was slight leakage. Nothing to be concerned about because 70% of the people on the street have the same thing and will never know it. Other than that, he said she has such long times between the PSVT episodes he wouldn't put her on medication and the cath-electrode (ablation) procedure is only a last resort if medication doesn't work.

Day 120 - First Day of Work!

Easter was yesterday and today is Jan's first day of work.

To start with, the hour long trip to the middle of no where went without a hitch. There was still a lot of storm damage evident. The tops of almost every tree of any size was broken off. First we went to the church where Jan visited the graves of her parents while the children of the congregation hunted for Easter eggs. After that, we returned to Caneyville to Jan's sister's house for lunch. Everyone brought something and it was a pretty good meal.

The first day of work was a bit of a challenge. For the most part, everything went well. Tessa took her to work on her way to school. Jan made it to lunch but she tired out a little early. I picked her up at around 2:00PM. She rested pretty much the rest of the day, taking it easy.

She was hoping to get into physical therapy this week but she doesn't feel she's strong enough yet.

Keep your fingers crossed. She returns to the heart doctor tomorrow.

Day 117 - Good Friday!

Today is Good Friday and I get the day off. Jan is planning on what to wear to the church on Sunday. She's thinking of blue jeans for comfort. I can't disagree with her.

Jan went to work for a meeting on Wednesday and stayed a couple of hours. It wore her out but she did better than she expected. She will return to work on Monday if all goes well. We will see how long she makes it. She knows I will come get here when she feels like she has done enough and hopefully before she does too much.

Last night was the first night since the accident that she has slept without the halo or the collar. She used one of those neck pillows that wrap around. It is somewhat supportive without being as binding as the collar.

I called around to a couple of plastic surgeons about reconstructive options for the pin dimples in her forehead. One said to wait about six months and the other said 10 weeks. It looks like they both agree it should be later but not on how much later.

Day 114 - Another Doctor Visit

Today, 114 days (or 16 weeks and two days) since the accident, is our 23rd anniversary! And they said it would not last! To celebrate, I'm looking for something in Cancun for a vacation later!

Yesterday, Jan had a visit with the heart doctor for an ultrasound of her heart, also known as an echocardiogram. She would have had this done sooner but the accident and subsequent halo-vest really put a damper on all things torso related. She needs to reschedule her mammogram as well. We won't know the results of the echocardiogram until next week when she returns for her followup visit.

Her neck continues to grow stronger and make progress. She has been going longer and longer without the collar but she still sleeps in it. She doesn't think she is ready to sleep without a collar. She always wears one when riding in a car. We just have to get her to where she can get her PT started.

Day 111 - Pins Sites At One Month

It is now one month since the halo was removed. The pin sites are "healed" skin wise but the depressions in the flesh or bone are quite prominent. Here is the picture I took this morning. As you can see, the sites are clearly visible.

Jan has been taking her collar off for anywhere from several minutes to an hour at a time. She is not comfortable doing it but it does not hurt her any more than wearing the collar. She is showering without it as well.

She did not take much Tylenol yesterday but did use some heat packs. She also did not take a valium tablet at bedtime and she slept well.

If all goes according to plan, she will return to work on April 13th. She may only do a half-day or just a few days a week but she wants to try going back. Since she still can't drive we have rides to and from work set up for her. The fallback is me being the catch-all in case she tires quickly or misses her ride to work. Her fellow staffers where she works have already said they will run interference for her, keeping the curious away when she feels tired. I have no doubt they will take good care of her. Her boss did not expect her back this month but she is resilient.

We have plans for her to see some of her family over Easter at the old family church. Some of them have not seen her since Thanksgiving, four and a half months ago.

Day 108 - Physical Therapy? Soon!

Jan had her second visit with the doctor today and, as usual, a simple thing is over six hours. That's the worst of it. The good news is she can take the collar off any time she wants. The doctor said she needs to wean off of it, probably within two to four weeks. At that time, she can start physical therapy. Her next appointment is not until July 1 when he, hopefully, will declare her cured and free do as she pleases.

For those that wish more details, they follow. We left at 12:30PM, arrived at the hospital by 1:45PM for a 2:30PM appointment. At all of the old appointments with the neurosurgery clinic, she had to go to the imaging lab at the main hospital by shuttle and then always to the OTHER IMAGINING LAB because they were backed up and then back to the neurosurgery clinic. Minimum of one hour both times plus all the hassle of getting a halo patient into and out of a van twice.

This time, we stopped at the imaging lab at the children's hospital ground floor, since we are trained to do that by the old clinic. She registered at the imaging lab at 1:50PM. The orders were not in the system so the check-in person called up to the doctor's office and they faxed them down. We waited 20 minutes and they said they were faxing them down but they never arrived. The guy finally went up to the ninth floor and got them. It was now 2:15PM.

The guy returned with the orders for imaging in his hands and put Jan in the queue. That took another 20 minutes and she was now officially late for her appointment. When she got back to the x-ray room, it didn't say if the collar needed to be on or off. They called the office but didn't get the doctor. They paged him and it took another 10 minutes. He called back and said to take it off. Jan didn't feel comfortable standing unassisted without it so the tech put me in a lead apron and I held her hands. She had to hold her head normally then bend her head forward and backward for x-rays of each view. She got through it fine if a little shaky.

We arrived on the ninth floor a good 45 minutes late for the appointment but still sat another 30 minutes in the waiting area. Once in an exam room, we spoke with the physician's assistant, the one that actually told me that the nurse practitioner canceled the appointment and she had scheduled Jan back with the neurosurgeon. Boy, was she honest and enlightening!

I won't spill all the details but suffice to say the NP rejected Jan's appointment and the PA promptly took ownership of the case and things have been so much better. She listened to the horror stories about the halo installation, the poor fit and the lack of support from the neurosurgery clinic. She said she took over Jan's case now and it would certainly be a better experience. So far, she has been dead on. The PA also told us she would brief the doctor on the issues before meeting with Jan and me and that we should tell him as well since he is an assistant professor at the hospital.

When the doctor arrived, we were fairly sure he was briefed but he played it very professionally, saying he would follow up on our issues and that she was past that portion. He said it would only get better from now on. She can't drive yet until the collar comes off and she can look to her sides and her weight limit is just 10 pounds but she is basically free of the collar when she has the confidence to take it off.

The tingling in her leg is a pinched nerve, caused by the vest. The doctor said it was much like a bruise. With luck, it will resolve within a few weeks or months. The pin holes are healed but still noticeably deep. He does not believe they will change much other than the pinkness of the skin turning whiter. I think she should at least consult someone about reconstruction to at least lessen them. After all, her forehead was fine after the accident and they are the ones that scarred her, physically and mentally.

After reviewing her x-rays with us, he said it looked very good. He said she would not need surgery, would not be paralyzed and there was no danger of her damaging the bones in her neck. According to him, it is healed well enough. The bones will remodel for some time but the strength is good enough to have no reservations.

He said she could take the collar off any time she wanted and encouraged me to help her wean off of it. Jan has the prescription for physical therapy now and can start in as little as two weeks but should be completely out of the collar in four weeks. PT could last as much as six weeks, depending on progress.

We left the office right about 6:00 PM and arrived back home just after 7:00 PM. A long day but overall, it was a good visit. Jan broke down a bit while detailing the trials she, and I by proxy had been subjected to through the previous months. If only she could have seen him from the beginning, things would have been so much better, possibly even tolerable.

Posts from here on will probably be fewer unless there is a funny redneck story to tell. I will continue to update on significant items as they occur but I think the worst is definitely behind us.

Day 105 - Audio Sound Bite

At 15 weeks since the accident, 24 days since the halo came off and just three days until the return visit to the doctor, I finally figured it out. I recorded the visit where the doctor removed the halo. I've converted the audio on the cell phone to something I can upload.

Here is a slide show along with a snippet of the doctor's comments before halo removal, answering the question we didn't ask. Jan believes after I filed the complaint and caused a big stink, the doctor felt he needed to add an unsolicited verdict on the halo setup. This was the thing he said that annoyed me but I kept quiet because the halo was still on her at this point.

Day 104 - Jan Went Up The Hill

The scholarship interviews on campus were a test of Jan's stamina. She spent all day without a nap. It did get to her a bit and after lunch she had me put a heating pad on her neck. We finally arrived back home around 6:30PM and she was pretty tired.

We won't find out anything about the results until Tessa gets a letter next week. We have our fingers crossed! Even if she doesn't get the Presidential Scholarship, she has the Award of Excellence Scholarship and is in the Honors College. Between the scholarship and the KEES money, she should be pretty much set.

After all the running around yesterday, we only walked two miles but it was a day without a rest break that she is used to. She slept pretty well last night and now we only have to see the doctor on Wednesday to see what happens next! Hopefully, physical therapy will be prescribed.

Fingers crossed and hoping for the best!

Day 102 - Retribution!

Some times I think too much and other times not enough. Things bounce around in the back of my mind until they make sense. Or maybe they make me crazy. Either way, I wind up acting upon them.

On this occasion, I called Bilkmore and confronted them about the December 16th bill, the one where Jan wound up back at the ER because of them providing no halo instructions. If they had given her or me any useful information and expectations, she would not have wound up back at the ER in less than 24 hours! The short version is they wiped out the entire bill for that day! Minor victory for our team! Money isn't the issue. It is about what was not right.

Tomorrow is an all-day event on Campus for Tessa. Jan is a little anxious about spending the whole day without the comfort of a chair to recline in if she gets exhausted. It will certainly be a test of her endurance. I can take her home at any time and Tessa can handle it all by herself if need be but it is a family event and Jan wants to attend.

I'm going to make sure she gets a good night's rest and keep my fingers crossed.

Day 100 - How To Wash Your Hair In A Cervical Collar

Triple-digit days since the accident. Only seven days, as I type this, until she returns to the doctor. Jan is looking forward to it, but with some apprehension. Any change is stressful when you don't know what happens next. She has been walking three miles each day the last few days so that is building up. Physical therapy will be hard but it will get her back to normal.

The lady at Hello Halo blog was having trouble washing her hair. Since Jan washes her's in the shower every day, she and I came up with this arrangement where we remove the back of the collar and put a wide velcro strap across the back to hold her head in the collar. That way her hair isn't covered by the collar back that goes from above her ears to below her shoulders. In this picture, she has her hair pinned up to show the back of the collar as it wraps around and the black strap that gives her some support.

Today was the first time in more than 100 days that she took ibuprofen for pain. NSAID drugs (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen) are not good for broken bones in the early stages of healing. They are anti-inflammatory and the healing process requires the inflammation response to cause the bones to properly grow back together. She is not in a lot of pain but it is that annoying ache and pinch that just won't go away yet.

I was speaking with someone about our accident. After showing him the pictures of the Miata, he remarked that a taller vehicle, such as Jan's Honda Pilot, probably would have rolled sooner and more than once. Even so, a Miata normally has no roof protection but our Miata had a hardtop and the roll bar. The odds are, the Miata survived the rollover better than the Honda Pilot would have. A Pilot, while full-bodied, does not have a roll bar reinforced top. Just sheet metal.

I used to operate a tow truck for my father. I recovered a few rolled cars in my time. If you google some rollover pictures, you will see that cars and trucks without roll bars are not any safer than a Miata with a roll bar.

In the end, accidents happen and nobody can predict how it will end. Some times, surviving is all you can hope for.

Day 98 - Is This The New Normal?

At 14 weeks after the accident, it almost feels like this is the new normal. This is a normal Jan does not want, nor do I. She feels like her progress is so slow and she just wants to be back like she was before the accident. I know she can do this but she needs more encouragement. She thinks her progress is slow but it took seconds to break her neck, 80 days to get atrophied muscles and it can't all be undone overnight.

With only nine days until her next appointment, I am trying to keep her motivated. Some of the time, I wish she'd do a blog on her own. She is still working on her on-line class and contemplating how she can get to work with minimal effort. She wants to return to work but just doesn't have the stamina for a full day.

Today, she walked about two miles, part of it at the grocery where we got more yogurt! Even if she isn't a fan, it is helpful with healing the bones.

Day 96 - Lame Update

It has been 96 days since Jan and I had the accident but only 16 days since the halo was removed. I've been back to work for two weeks and she has 12 days until the next appointment.

Not much has changed since the last update. She continues to walk as much as possible but without the ability to go anywhere on her own, she feels a bit isolated and trapped at home. We IM during the day and I go home every day for lunch. She doesn't get out as much as she did with the halo. I try to get her out but she just doesn't feel like it some of the time.

However, yesterday, we all got out. Jan, Tessa and I went shopping. I did not take the handicap placard either so she walked a little more. Afterward, we picked up some dinner.

Two other halo wearers have come to my attention. One is like Jan, already out of the halo while the other is only a few weeks into her time. Jan has been emailing the new user with any helpful tips she has. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her.

Day 94 - Nothing Much To Report

Two weeks in the collar, two weeks to go before the next doctor visit. She's walking as much as she can. We did a mile the other night when she walked to her very pregnant friend's house. Triplets!

Her neck is a little stiff in the morning but nowhere near as bad as the halo! Other than that, she didn't take any valium or Tylenol today but she hasn't been sleeping as well. Tonight she wants to take a whole valium to see if that helps her sleep better. I say it can't hurt.

Now that I'm back at work we keep in touch by IM. She can do almost anything she wants except drive. Showering still causes her a little anxiety but I'm there if she needs me. I help her change the collar, dry her hair and clean the pin holes.

All of the holes are pretty much healed except the one. It looks like it is only held in by her hair but is hard as a rock. It will come out when it is ready.