Posted on 12/09/2006 8:48:18 AM PST by knittnmom
Lord we pray your healing touch on this child and his family. We pray your comfort and strength for the parents.
In Jesus' Name
Amen
Great to hear! Continued prayers for Ian and family.
I can't believe how quickly everyone is healing! Great news! :)
It's been awesome to watch - just three short weeks after the accident, and a night we weren't sure he was even going to survive, he was released from the hospital. It looks as though God is going to grant him a full recovery, with the relatively minor exception of some loss of vision in his right eye. Tom was telling us last week about his therapy appointment for his vertigo - one session, and no more vertigo. Just totally astonishing to me. All the prayers are being answered, and it's a thrill to be on hand to witness!
I apologize for not getting these updates out sooner.
Here's one of Tom's recent posts:
January 28, 2007 at 08:18 PM CST
Well, it’s been an eventful week, filled with mostly good news.
On Monday, we visited with Ian’s neurosurgeon, Dr. Albright. We went into the exam room and put Ian on the table. When Dr. Albright came in, he sat in the chair at the end of the table and just looked at Ian for several minutes. Then, his face broke into a big smile. He conducted his examination of Ian, checking his strength, asking him questions (and fielding all sorts of questions and comments from Ian during the process) and observing his behavior. He then asked Heatherjane and me how we felt about Ian’s recovery so far. We told him we were very happy about Ian’s recovery so far, but we were also concerned about some of the cognitive issues he continues to have. We asked him about the implications of the 50% impingement of the internal carotid artery on the right side of his brain now and in the future. In addition, we asked him how he would characterize Ian’s recovery thus far, and how he would characterize Ian’s prognosis.
Dr. Albright told us that he was very pleased with Ian’s recovery, and that instead of my “pretty good,” he would call it “excellent”. On the issue of the carotid artery, he had excellent news—he doesn’t believe there will be any issues for Ian now or in the future. From a prognosis perspective, he said that based on his recovery so far, the prospects are good, but it’s still essentially a coin toss relative to how fast and far his recovery will go. We appreciated his candor, but it sure would have been nice to hear something more definitively positive. However, we’ve already seen the power of prayer, so we’re going to continue to pray that the coin toss will be resolved in Ian’s favor. We’ll see Dr. Albright again in March or April.
On Thursday, we visited Ian’s neurologist, Dr. Stafstrom. When he walked into the room, he was clearly stunned. The last time he saw him, Ian was in the throes of a grand mal seizure brought on by hyponatremia (low sodium), and was being transported back to the PICU. The intern who conducted the initial examination was also surprised—she told us that after reading his file, she never expected to see the boy she saw in the exam room.
After conducting his examination, during which he fielded a myriad of questions from Ian about what he was doing, Dr. Stafstrom was clearly pleasantly surprised. He told us that Ian’s recovery thus far was far beyond his expectations, and that in many ways, Ian was “off the charts.” We’re not sure exactly what he meant by that, but we’re pretty sure it’s a good thing. He also suggested that we have Ian get a neuropsych exam, to establish a baseline against which we can measure his recovery going forward. He told us that the various neurological issues Ian is experiencing, like hypersensitivity to light, sound and smell, short-term memory, problem solving, dysnomia (inability to find words), etc., are fairly typical of this stage of recovery from traumatic brain injury. He reminded us that it has only been six weeks since Ian’s injury (five since the seizure incidents), and that it is still very early in the process. Based on the pace of Ian’s recovery so far, Dr. Stafstrom is optimistic that he will continue to make quick progress, though with brain injuries it’s never a sure thing.
January 28, 2007 at 08:19 PM CST
Continued from first post.
While it’s only been six weeks since our accident, I can tell you that for us, it feels like at least three lifetimes. The emotional, physical and mental toll on our family has and continues to be enormous, and the uncertainty around Ian’s cognitive recovery continues to be on our mind virtually every waking hour. We are so thankful for how far he’s come, and we pray for his continued recovery. We know we never could have come this far without everyone’s support, whether it was spiritual, emotional or physical. We thank each of you for the support we know about and the support we don’t know about. Our family is forever in your debt.
Now that we are through the darkest part of the journey and we are no longer worried about Ian’s survival, we are turning our efforts and prayers to the healing of his brain and the restoration of his mental and physical abilities. Unfortunately, this process appears to be threatened by the limitations of our medical insurance coverage. We have had to cancel many of Ian’s speech therapy sessions because the number of sessions exceeds our policy limitations. This limitation will also impact his PT and OT sessions.
I will be talking to our insurance company next week to see what kind of arrangements we can make to keep at least the speech therapy sessions at the recommended frequency of three times per week. I’ll also be working on the PT/OT limitations. Please pray that we are able to find a workable solution that isn’t financially debilitating. In my experience, when you exhaust your plan limits, the insurance carrier charges full retail for the incremental services, not their negotiated rates, so the costs add up very quickly. If anyone out there has any suggestions for me, I’m wide open to your input and would value any expertise you have in this area.
BTTT
BTTT
Continued prayers for Ian.
Did the family ever look into who was at fault for the accident? If it was not their fault, I would get an attorney, pronto. He could go after the people and their insurance company to get Ian's bill paid. Also, Ian's recovery may be able to go through their auto insurance (I have no idea about that, but I would look there). My sister was in an accident (carbon monoxide). She ended up with a below the knee amputation and she has her prosthetics paid for the rest of her life. They need to look into that.
WVMM
Re: Still Burning a Candle for Ian
That is so cool! Thank you.
Thanks for the suggestion. I think they've engaged the services of an attorney, but I'll check with Tom.
Sure! I've been re-lighting it every 48 hours since you first posted, except a couple of times when I was sick. Will continue as needed!
Prayers continue.
Thank you!
That's so thoughtful! Thank you!
Thank You Jesus/continuing prayers bump!
Wonderful how well he is doing. Continued prayers for the rest of his recovery.
Prayers continue.
Ian has made excellent progress.
Off the charts is good...Far, far more progress than they anticipated..
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