As of June 17, 1999 update

As a couple of people so aptly pointed out it has been a while since I sent out a status report. Tempus fugit. I started back to work 2 months ago and it takes just about every waking minute to keep my head above water and even then sometimes I think I am going to have to learn to breathe under water

In the time since I sent out the last report things have changed, in some cases pretty substantially.

Suze had her stomach tube removed about 4 weeks ago and the scar from that is healing up fairly nicely. She has no problems chewing and swallowing solid food but still has a problem dealing with thin liquids. If she drinks more than a small sip she looses track of all the fluid and some of it spills down her windpipe which sets her off coughing (fortunately). Hardest part is first thing in the morning when she is really thirsty she tends to forget. She has been able to maintain her weight with no problem. She still is unable to handle utensils so she has to be fed but some of that is just laziness on her part. So I usually wolf down my food (no change there - the sub fleet teaches you to eat fast and make space for the next guy) and then spoon feed her food. Trying to get her to handle it herself and she is slowly making the transition. Finger foods aren't too bad but she still has problems handling a spoon or fork for any length of time.

Speech wise she is improving, I can understand her about 20% of the time when she says something complex and can understand 99% of the yes/no/here/there words. Problem is getting her to speak. You have to constantly remain her and badger her to say anything. She still doesn't have good control of her soft palate so a lot of sounds she has difficulty making and her breath capacity is still subpar so the two together make it difficult and tedious for her. She feels that she can be better understood with her alphabet board so she doesn't bother speaking. I am about ready to toss the damn thing away and do the total immersion method. She is getting set to go to an ENT doctor to have him look at the soft palate problem and see if he can recommend something. She really likes her Speech Pathologist and that has helped her make good progress in that area but she hasn't carried it out of therapy yet and applied it full time.

She is up to walking 150 FT with a walker, still needs a substantial amount of help with the walker to keep her from falling. In some ways she walks better without the walker than without it. Hopefully she will be able to perfect her transfer skills and get herself to and from the wheelchair without help fairly soon. Her right arm is still holding her back on that.

Been working on trying to stretch out her right arm but it has been slow and painful going. Not sure that it will ever be fully recovered. Her doctor is recommending surgery to go in and cut all the tendons etc and put it in a "useful position" but that is much too final a solution since full recovery from that will be impossible. Right now it is a matter of judging how much pain is too much and applying the brace to stretch the arm without exceeding that limit. Her wrist has started to lock up so we are fighting that as well.

She has been working on regaining her handwriting using her right hand. Still looks like a 5 or 6 year old but it is readable. Some of it is just the ergonomics of trying to writing when you can bend your wrist or elbow. She started working on "Thank you" cards yesterday and hopes to have some of them out this weekend. Started using the computer last weekend and spent most of the afternoon going through her non-sorted email. Didn't do any answers but read it all and put aside messages to answer later. She didn't remember anything about how the program worked etc but does remember where the keys are located on the keyboard.

Memory wise she still has huge holes in her memory. She has gotten some pictures from friends to remind her and they will spark a memory more times than not. Still doesn't remember us meeting or the wedding but some other recent memories have started to come back and she is starting to remember things from day to day which is encouraging. We went to Canon the other day to visit her workplace and unfortunately due to a foul up at the security gate we missed most of her friends there but she did get to see a couple and recognised and remembered most of them. Was pretty emotional for her and she cried a bit (happy tears as she calls them) and hopefully we will be able to get back there and see more of her friends.

She doesn't get many visitors which upsets her sometimes. She really blossoms when people do come by to see her. She is relating well to her therapists, had a very rough and rocky start, and likes the two women who come and sit with her while I am at work. If you plan on stopping by at night call ahead so I can let the sitters know that you are coming by, for obvious reasons if I don't tell them they aren't going to let you in. Just a word of warning in advance, I am still in the survival mode of cleaning so things tend to be a bit messy and if you are allergic to cats...

Today the person responsible for this whole mess pleaded guilty to Felony Driving Under the Influence with Maiming in court. His sentencing will be the 12 of August at 3 p.m. in Hampton Circuit Court #1. Suze's mother, sister and nephew will be visiting her from the 6th to the 20th of August so the Judge was nice enough to schedule the sentencing so that they could attend.

His insurance company finally settled up for her case but the Navy (Tricare) placed a lien on that money so we are trying to get them to release the money since she is going to require long term care and equipment that they will not cover. My case manager at Tricare is doing a great job of keeping things moving along and I am slowly working the knots out of the billing mess, I spend about 1-2 hours a day on the phone trying to sort things out. I think it might be faster to rent the Hampton Coliseum, invite all the billing agents and Tricare and let them sort it out face to face, no one to go home until everything is sorted and paid. Right now I literally have a 3 foot thick of paper.

I read every bit of mail and email I get, sometimes it takes me a while to get to it and I will reply but sometimes it takes me a very long time to do that. I keep Suze up to date on who writes and is asking about her and read her her mail and email when she isn't able to so please keep them coming.

I promise that the next update won't be so long in coming.

thanks

lawrence