LaSt LaUgH!

    One of the blessings is that we can pretty much find humor in anything these days...even sneaking into the women's bathroom together where there's no other bathroom for me to go in and help him! 
    Here are just a few things that have been said or have happened recently that have made for a good laugh! If you knew Aaron before the accident you know that he had a great sense of humor and he was very sarcastic! 

Me: (pulling into the rehab to take Aaron back one evening)
Aaron: Home Sweet Home!

Me: (sneezing)
Aaron: I think you are allergic to me

Me: (driving in a questionable neighborhood, car zooms down the road at our intersection) Drive it like you stold it!
Aaron: If you live around here you probably did!

Me: Dancing in the car. 
Aaron: That's all you got?

Me: (parked in the "doctor" spot at the rehab on the weekends)
Aaron: Dr. Royer 

wHeRe Do YoU sEe YoUrSeLf In FiVe YeArs?!

FIVE years later!!!

    Recently I had a conversation with one of Aaron's college friends and we were talking about how long ago the accident was. He was telling us about recent job interviews he had and how they seemed to ask this popular question, "Where do you see yourself in FiVe years?" Think about it for a minute.....it's not an easy question is it?!

    I know that if you had asked us this question just a few days prior to June 16, 2008 you would have gotten a completely different answer. Even just days after June 16, 2008 I could have never imagined telling you that we'd be where we are today. FiVe years seems like such a long time ago, then again it has seemed to go by so quickly! 

    Lucky for us God had this because we sure couldn't have done this without Him and I don't think I always give Him the credit He deserves! At first we had doctors telling us that the first year was where we would see the most progress, then we heard the first two years, then somewhere along the way it became the first FiVe. I am pretty sure that since then we have heard the word indefinitely used to measure the timeline for progress that Aaron could make. Well folks, we've hit FiVE (and are still seeing improvements) and feel blessed with every single second, minute, day, and year! 

     I asked my favorite photographer, Beth Carter, if she would help me get some new pictures to share for this blog. Lakeland Regional Medical Center staff were the ones who saved Aaron's life and I couldn't think of a better place than where it all started. On a side note, we have been invited to LRMC Trauma Awareness Day each year, one of the gifts Aaron received was a t-shirt that I thought would be appropriate for this photo shoot! (Check out the close up in the pictures that follow!) 

In front of Lakeland Regional Medical Center.

I can not tell you how often I go through our pictures from 2008 to present day and see what an amazing story they tell. Each picture, along with each year, reminds me that we have both survived through this craziness annnnnnnd Aaron has gotten just a little closer to being that same old Aaron we all know and adore! 

Sporting his LRMC Trauma Survivor Shirt!

   
    In FiVe years we have come a LONG way and I think Aaron would agree on these FiVe things...


OnE: Our lives haven't been easy (or where we thought we'd be) the past five years but we have learned a lot along the way. 

TwO: We are thankful for all of the progress Aaron has made that no one could guarantee that we would see. 

ThReE: We share our life with so many wonderful people that have helped us in big and small ways and shared our lives in good times and bad! 

FoUr: Anything is possible! 

FiVe: God is good ALL the time!

The fountain in front of LRMC where we took family pictures while Aaron was in the hospital! 

   

    I recently found a quote from Sonia Ricotti and I thought it was the perfect way to share my answer for the question I asked in the beginning of this entry. In five years, I hope to be able to continue to "Surrender to what is. Let go of what was. Have faith in what will be." 

    I can't wait to share what the next five years has in store for us! Where do you see YOURSELF in five years? 

All pictures are courtesy of Beth Carter Photography  at http://www.bethcarterphotography.com

cHeErS!

    This all started back at my staff Christmas party in '08, just a few months after Aaron's accident had happened. This was during the time where Aaron was not able to travel outside of his rehab facility. I reluctantly went, although I really wanted to go, I knew it wouldn't be the same without Aaron.

   I'm not sure exactly how it happened, if I remember right, I was drinking a beer before dinner and it was sitting on the table (almost empty) in front of me. That's about the time when my co-worker's husband, Jerry, came up to me with a smile on his face and a fresh cold beer in his hand! 

    Little did I know, that this was only the beginning of him taking care of me at our many social gatherings. From that night on, Jerry always made sure I was taken care of...with a smile and a cold drink! 

   Last week we went out for one last drink before we all started our summer vacation and went our separate ways. I had gotten there late and had ordered a water. I was chatting with people on my side of the table, not even paying attention, when I turned around here came Jerry with a smile on his face and a cold drink in hand! 

   It's truly the little things that make this journey just a little bit easier...who knew how much a smile and a cold drink could make my day over and over and over again?! Thanks Jerry and Dee for always being so sweet and putting a smile on my face! 

tHe BeSt A mAn CaN gEt?!

There is an OLD Gillette shaving commercial..."Gillette, the best a man can get!" and it came to mind as I started brainstorming for this blog.

For some reason, I think Aaron would agree that I am NOT the best a man can get when it comes to shaving his face! Shaving a man's face is something that I never thought I'd do, shaving my own legs is bad enough!


Going back to our ICU days...it only took TWO nurses to shave Aaron! I remember laughing in the middle of our craziness as they both took on this task!

Sometime in Spring 2009...it was my turn to try and here is a picture before my first attempt at shaving a man's face!

Just a few years later...my cute little baby face. We cleaned him up good or maybe I messed it up, I can't remember! 

Practice makes perfect and I am becoming a pro at this shaving thing, I am a little better now that Aaron can actually help by telling me what to do!

oUr PaTh

I have seen this image on a few different Facebook pages recently and this topic has been on my heart for some time. 

I can not write this without admitting that I am 100% guilty of thinking I have understood someone else's journey at one time or another.

It's much easier to look at someone else's journey and think...I wouldn't do it "that" way. It's also easy to have those feelings..."if it were me then I'd...". But the truth is that if it's not you then you don't know and you really don't need to offer your thoughts and opinions unless solicited. (And even then, don't expect to like everything you will hear!) 

There are so many chapters to this journey that I often forget what I have shared, there are many more to write, and there are many being added. 

I referred to the tough stuff early on and it seems like each time I start to write about it, I chicken out. I do not want to incriminate anyone in particular and I try to beat around the bush at times.  Each part of our journey is important because there are the parts that have made us stronger, there are parts that have changed our path in big and small ways, there are the parts that have changed who we are, and there are the parts that have taught us things we will never forget. 

I have always worried what others thought, let's be honest. 

In the beginning of this journey I didn't have the capacity to care what anyone thought, I was pretty much in survival mode. It was kind of nice for once. Unfortunately this only lasted about 2-3 months, then we started to settle in to our new reality and began to understand what a brain injury was and some of the things that would become a part of our journey.

This all started with the questions regarding my marriage. Would I stay married to Aaron? Many people told me that they would understood if I walked away. Many people told me that Aaron would understand too, he wouldn't want me to live this life. I know the people closest to me said it out of love and concern and they were allowed a pass this time, I could hear it from them. It was the people who didn't really know me or Aaron who were speaking up on this topic that really upset me. These were people who did not know us or our relationship that were asking these questions during such a difficult time. It still happens, unfortunately, even as recent as last summer I still had a person who realized who I was ask if I was still married to Aaron.

It has also been a long and drawn out journey figuring out how to bring Aaron home for good. It's been on my to-do list for oh about five years now and it's still not obviously been crossed off. I remember talking about it in the ICU that first summer, I remember talking about it early in rehab. I remember people who knew a lot more than me about brain injuries looking at me with such doubt. We have come such a long way and I am still working on it. I am still determined to make it happen someday, somehow. We have come leaps and bounds! We started about three and a half years ago with day trips, soon after adding overnight trips. We tried two weeks home last summer with success. As of last month, we have been able to fly twice out of state to see family. We are headed in that direction but we are just not there...yet. I am still as determined as I started out to be to make it happen, it is still a work in progress but there are too many "what ifs" at the moment and some logistics to figure out. 

Here comes the next part...me and my journey as the wife and caregiver. I assure you that I am doing the best I can with what we have been given. It took me a long time and a lot of convincing from others that it's okay for me to have my time and do things for myself. (And Aaron tells me he is okay with this too now which makes me feel a million times better!) Early on I spent so much time taking care of Aaron, I was constantly reminded that I need to take care of me too! Someone we met at the very beginning of this journey and has become an important part of Aaron's and my life told me that any normal husband and wife need their time apart, it's healthy! The first big thing I did was to go on a short spring break trip to Vegas with a friend about two years after Aaron's accident. I can not begin to tell you how guilty I felt. I still feel guilty if I take a night (or two) off and do not go see Aaron. I feel guilty when I sit at home by myself on a Saturday morning just because I can be lazy for a few hours. I feel guilty if I visit Aaron for only 30 minutes because I had a long day at work and I haven't even been home yet. 

At the end of the day, Aaron and I have this crazy little journey of ours figured out for this moment. Although it may appear a certain way to you, it definitely looks a whole lot different from our perspective!  

Not everyone can understand your journey but hopefully the people most important to you will be there just willing to walk beside you! 

mY aMeRiCaN iDoL

Before Aaron's accident, I wouldn't say we were big TV watchers. We were too busy living life (and both going to grad school) to actually sit down on the couch and watch TV. On occasion I would sneak in an episode of the Bachelor when he had something else to do, I would catch him watching Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother when I walked in from class. Of course ESPN was on first thing each morning and the TV was on for any major sporting event, especially if it involved Ohio State! 

There was a time where I 'd leave work by 4, drive an hour to see Aaron in Wauchula...somewhere between there I'd get take out for dinner and eat it in the car. I would get there by 6 and to make it worth the long trip I'd stay for at least a couple of hours. Most nights I would just crawl into bed with him when I got there. 

If you have ever been to Wauchula you know that the TV is the only thing we had to entertain ourselves at night. Aaron wasn't a fan of all of the crime shows and that was pretty much all that seemed to be on around 8-10pm in the evenings so we had to find something else to watch! 

This was the time when he was starting to whisper FINALLY, I was desperately trying to get him to talk and encouraging everyone who was visiting to do the same. I had become irritated trying to spell things from a print out of a computer keyboard, although Aaron was getting good at it! 

The therapists also told me to do things with him that he enjoyed before the accident. It would probably have been easier to stick with watching ESPN but I soon found out that American Idol was much more entertaining! 

We spent the rest of that season singing our hearts out, well I tried to sing and encouraged Aaron to join me! It became even more fun when the contestants performed "old" songs that Aaron began to mouth (and eventually sing) the words to. At this point we were still dealing with some major memory glitches as well so I was amazed at how much he remembered!

It wasn't long before we took American Idol on the road with us when we started being able to travel outside of the facility, I'd turn on some of our old favorites as loud as I could and sing along with Aaron! 

It's been almost five years of singing to the radio or American Idol together and it is still one of my favorite things to do with Aaron!

I couldn't think of a better ending to this blog than to share some of my personal favorite songs to hear Aaron sing: "Whoomp There is Is", "Fresh Prince of Belair" (theme song), "Baby Got Back", and my newest favorite..."Thrift Shop" lol!