We're 6 days post accident and Claire has moved from ICU (there for four days) to a regular room (currently in the second full day here). The progress Claire has shown has been phenomenal. In ICU the first day after her surgery she was essentially in a drug induced rest, sleeping throughout the day and allowing her body to do all the hard work of recovering from what she had just been through. Karlee and I began the process of switching nights at the hospital with her.
Her second day in ICU she was in and out of consciousness and very tolerable of all of the testing and poking and prodding that needed to be done. She began that day showing us just how tough a little worker she is when she told me two things; "I want water" and "I want to sit up." At this point we could certainly oblige, at least partly, with both requests which made her happy - as did all the pain medication. :) This night was the first night that I stayed at her bedside, awake every hour, watching her, rubbing her legs and feet and talking with her through all of the nurses visits. My touches on her legs and feet created not a single stir or reaction which was unfortunately the exact reaction we were expecting. :(
Days three and four she proved herself enough to the doctors in the ICU that she was able to be transferred out of ICU on day 5 and into a normal hospital room. Multiple times during her stay in ICU she would use her arms and try to roll herself over, sit up, or even pull herself out of bed. Very impressive, considering only days prior she was so badly injured. She also started herself back on solid foods during these days. The really sad part during these days was to see her frustration start to come out as she realized that there was something wrong with her legs. However, her neurosurgeon from the Sunday morning surgery did stop by on day three to see how she was doing. He walked around the foot of the bed and as he did he tickled her left foot, which jerked and flexed to his touch. My mouth just dropped open and I pointed to her foot. Before I could say a word though, the doctor told us that the movement we saw was reflexive and involuntary and not to make too much out of it because of that. Inside, Karlee and I could only see the good in it and hold on to that glimmer of hope.
Days 5 and 6 were spent in the normal hospital room, still with multiple wakings and pokings and proddings and Claire's continued realization and frustration that her legs were not moving at her request. Still, we continued to massage and flex and rub her feet and legs and continued to get those "reflex" responses to our touch. Karlee and I would try to test Claire to see if she knew which foot we were touching, but it never seemed that she could get the right answer, so it appears that the "feeling" isn't transmitting all the way to her brain but is at least making it into her legs and allowing them to flex and move. The rehab doctors also visited and had Claire sit up at the edge of her bed with her legs hanging down and asked her to move them, which she couldn't - no matter how hard she tried. She got really upset and told them that her legs were "stuck."
On day six she finally got to get out of bed and into a wheel chair. A change from laying down all the time to the wheelchair certainly made her happy, but we could tell that all the moving around hurt. She was brought back to her bed and was seriously wiped out. Just exhausted from it all. It was this day that we found that we would be moved once again to another room, but this time it is in the rehabilitation center at PCH. We were moved to the room later in the day on the 23rd and that is where you currently find me typing this message.
Rehab.. It's going to be tough for her.. LOTS of hard work.. But, Claire absolutely HATES that she cannot make her legs move and this little girl is so determined that Karlee and I believe that if anybody can rehab from this injury, it's Claire..
More to come as the journey progresses.
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