May 30, 2020

It was a carefree watch movies all day kind of day for Shannon. That sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Shannon has a love-hate relationship with the weekend. She loves not having to work hard, but there is literally nothing going on to entertain her, and her room is beyond boring at this point. FOUR more days and then she gets to come home!!

Shannon did have Rec Therapy today, and they played a game. Nothing on the docket for tomorrow.

On the home front, we are chipping away at things. Nothing major was completed today- just more flooring, more drywall, baseboards, etc. Rachael and Jake put together the cabinets for the bathroom and the desk we are using for Shannon's bedroom kitchenette. I bought paint to repaint the closetmaid set we bought off FB marketplace. After a trial run, I was on the fence about proceeding. Rachael said we'd do whatever I wanted. I couldn't decide. We flipped a coin, and it said paint. Then we let the 5 year old at our house decide, and he said don't paint. So we didn't. I love it when little kids have all the answers! 

We also tried out Shannon's medical lift...and everyone decided they want one of their own.

The bedroom is really coming together. This is a last night photo, but I absolutely love the colors. I think I might move in with Shannon. 

If you are my neighbor, and you are reading this, please don't call the police when we are making too much noise! Just text me :) The guys are trying to get the tiling done. And sometimes they forgot to pay attention to the time. Last night I had to let them know it was 11:30pm, and they were still playing with the tile saw. (the photo was taken way earlier)

I know there are a lot of questions about Shannon and her condition, so I thought I would share a bit, and hopefully it helps you understand where she is in her journey. 

Shannon was in a near-fatal accident, and is so blessed to be alive. But beyond that, as I've mentioned before, she has overcome many singularly life-threatening injuries to her heart, brain, lungs, and spinal cord. She has fought hard and has made miraculous strides and is healing so well. What is left to overcome are her brain and spinal injuries. When she first arrived at Magee Rehabilitation, after 16 days in the SICU, she was classified with a Cervical 5 (C5) injury, because she didn't have use of anything below that vertebrae in her neck. She had feeling in her body above thoracic vertebrae 2 and 3 (T2-T3), but no feeling or use below them.  That means Shannon is currently an incomplete quadriplegic. Incomplete because she has use of her arms, but not entirely. She has muscles in her arms that aren't responding and her pinky's are not working completely. When all of this first happened, a good friend of mine shared this graphic with me, and it's the best one I've seen to explain what part of your spinal cord controls each part of your body. 

Looking at C5 and what it controls, you can see why she had no use of her arms. Then she regained that, probably as swelling to that region of spinal cord went down. Now she's at C8, which should control the under part of her arms through her pinky's. Everything below that injury site is affected.   T2 and T3 were dislodged, and her spinal cord was partially severed there. She had microsurgery on that portion of her spinal cord. She had (if I'm remembering correctly) 12 vertebrae in addition to T2-T3 damaged in some way. I think the highest was at C4. Mostly there were cracks and chips. 

The respiratory issues she had are because she doesn't have control of her chest and abdominal muscles. Because of the level of injury, her brain wasn't able to get her diaphragm to make her lungs work properly. We were so excited when things started working and she got off the ventilator. 

Imagine what life would look like, if you couldn't use anything below your shoulder blades in the back, and your upper chest in the front. You only use your arms to move yourself around- arms that aren't completely working. Not very easy to accomplish things. 

The brain injury is another story. She had bleeding in her frontal lobe, which controls executive function. EF and memory are the biggest issues they are focusing on with Shannon. EF is super involved- and that will be a huge hurdle for her in the future as her brain heals. It's what we all know but don't know we know. Here are some things it includes:

• Planning and organization
• Flexible thinking
• Monitoring performance
• Multi-tasking
• Solving unusual problems
• Self-awareness
• Learning rules
• Social behavior
• Making decisions
• Motivation
• Initiating appropriate behavior
• Inhibiting inappropriate behavior
• Controlling emotions
• Concentrating and taking in information

This website has great info about EF and the example of making a meal really helps you see how much you do without realizing you are doing it. 

https://www.headway.org.uk/about-brain-injury/individuals/effects-of-brain-injury/executive-dysfunction/

There have also been a few other questions I wanted to address, just because they keep getting asked to both Shannon, and us. 

1. Will she walk again? The doctors are not ruling it out. If she does, it's years down the road. We, personally, believe she will- and so that's what we are all working toward. 

2. Can Shannon still have kids? YES! Most likely there will be no issues with her having children. Besides her brain injury, all of her organs are now working properly. She needs help with some organs completing their designed tasks, but they all work. 

3. Does Shannon remember the accident? Nope. She doesn't remember anything between (about) March 1-April 3rd. The accident was on March 15th. She has scattered memories of the first part of March, as well as the first week of April. She can't remember details of her first week at Magee, and has a few memories of the SICU. 

4. How is Shannon doing with all of this? She has an overall positive outlook on life, but as with all of us, she has hard days, and easier days. She's still Shannon- still fantastic, still funny, still creative, still amazing. 

There's a lot more going on with Miss Shannon, but hopefully that gives you a better idea of where she is. Please pray for Shannon to have patience with herself and her care takers these last few days at the hospital and to enjoy them. Pray for Shannon and us to finish learning the things we all need to be able to care for her at home, and for her body to have the energy and stamina to do those tasks. Thank you for everything you do for Shannon, and our family. 

We are officially in Shannon's Memes: The Quarantine Edition: 

 

And because we all need our own personal lift, and someone to push us around in it, this Disney gem: 

Flynn Ryder: "Oh Mama! I have got to get me one of these!!"

Disney's Tangled