Salem to Sisters to Seattle

What an amazing week! I flew back from Anchorage, Alaska to my home in Salem, OR spent a few days there, gave myself a spontaneous 'free day' in Sisters for the famous Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (more on that later!), and am now in Seattle, Washington.

I am staying here all week as I give support to my brother, Doug who is in Harborview Medical Center, and my sister-in-law, Rebecca after her fall in the hospital corridors that not only gave her a dark purple 'shiner', but broke her hip.

It was an extremely unfortunate accident, as a nurse was walking along beside her when she suddenly went down. It was another challenge to add to all of the others, but she is a trooper and is trying her best to not be too frustrated to have to deal with this on top of her husband (my brother) being in such serious condition for about a month and half, now!

I am so grateful that they are both doing as well as they are, all things considered. Becky had surgery Saturday morning and we were up here, and able to visit with her by Sunday morning. I visit every day, several times each, and walk between hospital wings and different floors connecting the spaces between them with full reports on Doug's progress to Becky, and lots of calm, positive, encouraging comments to my brother that I believe will sift down beneath the layers of his coma and reach his heart and bring him back up again to all of us.

He has made very good progress since he has been here. By the second day after being medevac'ed from Anchorage, they were able to get him off of all of the deep sedation. They did discover a great deal of infection and fluid in his lungs again..an ongoing battle but his body his working hard to fight it. His MRI was a bit better for the ADEM that has created inflammation in his brain and with the addition of a third anti-seizure medication, his seizures have completely stopped.

Yesterday, I was incredibly encouraged by my visits with him. As I talk to him, calmly and quietly and always in a careful and very positive way, I tell him where he is, what day it is, that he has been sick but is getting better and better every day. I tell him how much we all love him and that everyone he loves is just fine. I name his wife, his three children and his grandchildren..one by one, slowly and then repeat that they all love him so much, need him to come back to them and that they are all doing fine and so is he!

At one point, I asked him to blink his eyes if he could hear me and he did! To make sure it was not a random response, I carefully repeated it and he blinked again. I read his vitals to him (he is a doctor, himself) in the hope that since they are all pretty good, they would transfer/translate at some level of reassurance that all is well.

At another point when I shifted my movement, his eyes moved and tracked me and then stayed looking right into my own eyes. Oh, that was so wonderful!

I then go and visit my sister-in-law in her wing of the hospital. She was in dialysis and by a bit of psychological work on my part, I not only got her to eat a bite of scrambled eggs so I 'could tell her daughter that I really did get her to finally eat something' but I kept the chit chat going and got the entire breakfast down her. Oh, I am sneaky..good sneaky, but good!

As she was resisting starting physical therapy due to the pain, I reminded her that the sooner she could do weight baring standing and be able to sit in a wheelchair, the sooner they would be able to wheel her up and over to see Doug!

I walk back to the hotel for the ICU's quiet hour and then returned after fixing myself a lunch for my second visits with each of them This time my brother had just received notice of a second blood culture being infection free so he was able to have a pic line inserted in order to deliver medications more directly into his heart and its blood supply and not through his uncooperative veins where medications can often burn etc. as they go in. So, with Becky's legal consent they had arranged for the insertion of a pic line.

While waiting outside his ICU room for the procedure to finish, I looked down the hall and saw Rebecca being pushed down the hall in a wheelchair. I almost cheered! But it was ICU after all, so I just clasped my hands to my heart and then up in the air with a great big smile!

I got the protective gowns on both of us, gloves onto me, and into his room we went. By my pushing her, her nurse could stay outside the boundary and not have to glove and suit up along with us. I was able to get the wheelchair fairly close to Doug's bed and she made contact and talked lovingly to him. His eyes found hers and locked on them.

I was so touched and so very, very encouraged! It makes everything so worthwhile and I am so blessed to be able to be here in Seattle with them!

Next post:
The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and a lot of photos!

Linking Posts:

Latest Update on Praying for a Miracle
Praying for a Miracle
Two Steps Forward, one Step Back
Praying for a Miracle
Crisis
Providence Alaska Medical Center
Providence, Divine and Otherwise
Song of the Hills and an Air Flight Medevac to Seattle
Salem to Sisters to Seattle


Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!