oUr DaYs iN tHe ICU...the medical stuff

  Beware, this one is a LONG one! I will fill in the gaps with some other tough stuff and funny random moments from our ICU stay another time because there is a lot I can write about.   

 Side notes...

    I want to let you know that have posted some pictures below (with Aaron's permission) that might make some people a little uncomfortable. One of the nurses and our pastor both suggested that I take some pictures along the way. I was reluctant at first and I pretty much thought they were crazy at the time but I am glad now that we have them since they tell such an amazing story of what we went through. This is the first time I have ever really shared them, besides with close family and friends. 

Lakeland Regional Medical Center...

    Aaron spent a total of 58 days in the ICU, about 35 miles from our house. I have to be honest, I was a total mess when we left! I don't like change to begin with and I loved our staff who took such great care of us...praying with us, laughing with us, and even crying with us once in awhile. They were such a blessing when our entire world was turned upside down. I didn't know what I would ever do without them holding my hand each step of the way. 

Lakeland Regional Medical Center

Having faith...

    This is the part of the journey where my faith would be challenged and changed in a way I never could have imagined. I learned what is was truly like to trust in God's plan and not my own (those plans I had mentioned that Aaron and I made in one of my first blogs were null and void at this point)! I am definitely not saying that I could always 100% say "God, I am with you on this!" because I would be lying. It took a long time, a lot of obstacles, and a lot more patience for me to completely hand it all over. 

    One of my favorite scriptures is from Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight." One night all I could do was read this over and over and hope that the more I read it the more I would just trust because there was literally nothing else that could be done, not by me or the doctors. This would also be the first of many verses that I would start to write on Aaron's dry erase board in his hospital room. It is also the one I carry in my purse to this day. 

    My philosophy...

    Our pastor had a conversation with me during one of the first days in the ICU (the first of many) and he had suggested to me to not ask questions that I didn't want the answer to. This advice was yet another blessing, it was a big reason why I was able to stay so optimistic and believe in basically a miracle! Soon enough, everyone knew that they were not allowed to ask questions unless...

1. I couldn't hear them ask. (And they didn't tell me the answer!) 
2. They asked my permission.

Looking back...BEST ADVICE EVER!!!!!!!!!

The first three weeks...

The first week.

    For some reason, during the first twenty four hours we had crazy this idea that Aaron would slowly wake up, be discharged a few days later only to end up home sitting on the couch all summer recuperating while we waited on him. Well that didn't happen and was far from the reality we were facing. 

    Even though Aaron opened his eyes and was able to respond to me by showing me thumbs up less than 24 hours after the accident, one of the nurses talked to us about "window" of time where a brain injury could take a turn for the worse. Soon after this conversation and less than 48 hours into our ICU stay that happened. From there we started our roller coaster ride and I began to hate Wednesday's. 

    On Wednesday, June 18th Aaron's inner cranial pressure (ICPs) started rising. Even though he had an external shunt placed into his brain to drain away fluids, the pressure inside his skull where the brain was swelling was still too much. The doctors decided put him on a machine called Arctic Sun, it cooled his body down to help his brain rest with several cooling pads that were laid across Aaron's body. This seemed to do the trick! 

The Arctic Sun Machine.

   Exactly a week later on Wednesday, June 25th when things seemed to be getting better again Aaron took another turn for the worse as his ICPs continued to go up again. This time they decided to put him into a medical induced coma to allow his brain to rest. Again, this seemed to be just the quick fix we needed. 

    During these first two weeks, there were times that we were not allowed to stimulate Aaron at all, which meant not touching or talking to him. We couldn't even turn on the lights in his room unless it was absolutely necessary.  Moving him, well that was pretty much impossible unless we wanted to risk the pressure increasing. 

   On Tuesday, July 1st, the neurosurgeon started discussing the option of surgery since Aaron's ICPs were still continuing to go up too high. We discussed the surgery in the morning and I signed the paperwork to have it the next morning, ironically another Wednesday. That same night, Aaron's ICPs were into the 60's or 70's (the staff started treating it as serious when the ICPs started to get into the low 20s). The neurologist that was on call came in to tell us that Aaron probably wouldn't make it through the night. My friends and I looked at each other to confirmed that he really had said that we needed to prepare for the worse. 

    Friends of ours went to pick up Aaron's brother, his wife, our nephew, and Aaron's mother from the airport. Aaron's dad, step-mom, and their kids (who had been in Florida off and on) had literally left two days earlier and had to turn around and come back down. I surrendered my cell phone and calls were made to let everyone know that it was pretty bad and the doctors were concerned that Aaron wouldn't even make it through the night. 

    It then became a waiting game. I did not leave his side and the ICU staff even allowed me to stay with Aaron during shift change. I remember sitting  next to his bed while his best friend sat on the floor for hours. That night, his friend traded places with the moms. I fell asleep against the bed rail eventually. 

   Early the next morning on Wednesday, July 2nd our own neurosurgeon was back. There was a small window of opportunity to do the surgery so we decided to take it given the alternative. Those few hours in the surgical waiting room seemed to go so slow. Only two family members could be there at a time so friends, family, and one of our pastors took turns trading in and out to sit with me. 

    The plan was to take Aaron right back to the ICU room after surgery and as soon as he was settled, I would be let back. The surgeon called us into the hall as they wheeled Aaron by. He explained to me and our friend that the surgery went well but he was concerned that Aaron's "pupils popped". (We had an amazing nurse with us through this stretch and she later explained that this meant that his pupils were larger than they were supposed to be and this was a sign that he could have serious brain damage that he would never recover from.) 

Aaron's after the surgery.

July 18th...

    The following weeks were relatively quiet, it was still a very painful waiting game. Not only was my faith tested but also my patience. By this time family came and went, Aaron's mom who had just retired was able to stay behind temporarily. 

    The head nurse came into Aaron's room one afternoon. Standing only inches away from Aaron, she explained that she knew we believed in God and she wanted to give us time to pray about things. She said that the doctors would go through the protocol and start taking Aaron off some of the medicines soon and would be looking for signs of his reflexes to start coming back and him to start waking up. She told me she wanted me to know what was expected so that if Aaron didn't respond, I had time to decide what I thought HIS wishes would be. 

   Even though I know what his wishes would be, I went out of Aaron's room immediately to call our pastor. Since things with Aaron had proved not to be consistent and he often surprised us, I often kept that kind of news within a small circle to see how it played out before we made it a public announcement. Our pastor and I discussed who I should tell, given the worse case scenario. He helped me decide that I would talk only to Aaron's parents, brother, and some of my family about the conversation I had just had. If things progressed great, if not it would be then when I had tell everyone else. 

   I often called to check on Aaron throughout the night during his stay in the ICU, I was lucky to get four hours of uninterrupted sleep that summer. When I called that same night the nurse told me that she thought that she had seen Aaron's eyes open slightly! I was so ecstatic that I called back less than an hour later to make sure it was still happening and since it was I called his brother at 3am in the morning because this just couldn't wait!

   6 weeks in...

    Aaron had finally began to make slow progress but he was still on a ventilator at this point, not ideal this many weeks into this but it was one of the things we had no choice over. There was a lot of concern that there could be complications, after all they only recommended them in for about 2 weeks. On July 24th, they were finally able to get a trachea in as well as a PEG feeding tube for nutrition. 

The trachea finally in! 

The little but BIG things...

July 25: Aaron started yawning.

July 26: Aaron responded to stimulus (he moved his hand when they used tweezers to squeeze his nail beds).

July 29th: Aaron followed a command to wiggle his toes. 

July 30th: Aaron breathed on his own during a trial!

   

August 1st...

  

 One of the nurses was always making us laugh and when they started giving Aaron simple commands they were not sure if he was actually following or it was just a movement he randomly did at that exact moment. This one nurse decided to have him do something out of the ordinary to see if he was really following commands. We returned from lunch that afternoon only to be greeted by the doctor and a couple of nurses in the hallway who were thrilled to tell me that Aaron actually smiled on command! (Probably one of my favorite stories from the ICU!) 

August 10th and 11th...

    I had just gone back to work, fortunately another blessing was that I had been summer vacation this entire time. 

   They did a 24 hour trial with Aaron off the ventilator. It was successful so they were able to move him to the trachea collar, which gave him oxygen and let Aaron do all of the work to breath on his own. It was so strange to go into Aaron's room and have the ventilator machine missing from the corner of the room. One of the nurses also had Aaron moved into a chair one afternoon, where he would sit up for the first time all summer! 

No more ventilator!

August 13th...

    Aaron was discharged from the ICU, AMEN right?! He was taken by ambulance (non emergency) to a specialized rehab about an hour south of the hospital. We said our goodbyes, well I did, and we started a new chapter... that is coming eventually!