Hello!
I just read through all the posts and will try to answer as many questions/comments I can remember. :/ Again sorry for the delayed update...
Trevor is doing good overall! Steady baby steps keep happening. He's at home for 6 weeks (ends the end of this month) because of an antibiotic we have to give him through a pic line. This is to clear up an infection he had underneath his bone flap that was replaced December 2012. They had to remove his bone flap and put in titanium mesh metal. The surgery went great and everything is going to plan so far. All follow up CT scans are clear!
We've seen intimidate results from the surgery even same day results, like him crossing his left leg over his right after the surgery. (his left side is affected due to brain injury on the right side of his head) This was a first! You can have a good conversation with him and his vocab is still well intact. Everything back to High School Graduation is gone for the most part. He remembers people for the most part and big events. He can still tell you how to rebuild a motorcycle though! He's had a few "new" old memories lately and it's fun to watch him light up. He giggles sometimes when we talk about the past which I like to think gives him a warm and fuzzy feeling, like he knows what we are talking about.
Laying down, he has great range of motion with his left leg so I know it's just a matter of time before he can weight bare and do these things standing up. His loves lifting his left arm and moving his fingers. He has HO (something ridiculously long that means bone growth in the soft tissue) in his left elbow and knee. This is a side effect of his injury, which stinks. He recently walked 40 feet with assistance moving the left leg every so slightly on his on!
Let's see we've migrated to sleeping in our own bed vs the hospital bed we had. He's pretty much fully potty trained (not sure how to say that one, but it's a big deal! and he'll kill me later). He's on a full diet so he can eat anything, but his liquids still have to be thickened to nectar thick. He's actually gained some weight which is good but boy the extra lbs make transfers difficult. Thankfully he's learning side transfers from like the bed to the wheelchair so hopefully we will master those soon. We moved into a wheelchair friendly apartment (finding an official handicap place is actually difficult) and are modifying it for his needs.
Trevor is so incredibly motivated. To me this is half the battled. He asks daily now, "How do I get to be more like you?" My response starts with, "well you'll need a sex change first." He'll laugh then want a serious answer. His carry over memory is decent but in general short term memory still needs a lot of help so we use schedules, notes, and cue words to remind him. It's like he remembers the information but doesn't know how to access it.
He's been craving to go on a bike ride and fix up his motorcycle. We've (Pam -his mom and myself) have been loading his 100lb wheelchair in the back of our car for months now and finally got wheelchair ramps for our car. I tried it out for the first time last night and man, now we are off and rolling.
The guy that hit him accepted a plea deal of 25 years and a guilty plea. Trust us we fought hard for not getting a plea deal, but you really have no say in what the prosecutors do... Ray was eligible for 35 years originally. His first parole hearing is in 6 years. To me, it's more of a burden on us to keep showing up at parole hearings. I mean had Arkansas caught the fact that he totaled his car just 5 weeks earlier and that violated his parole from killing a person in a drinking and driving accident, he would have never been on the streets... but I'll leave my rants for another day.
Criminal is over, which is a relief, but now on to Civil suit. It's a hot mess... I'm not expecting to actually see anything more than insurance money but I can hope. Ray's family is well off, but very well protected. We get to go to Ray's deposition at the end of this month. I'm on pins and needles wondering what he won't say. His parents said absolutely nothing when we had our depos. It's infuriating what they knew and didn't do/did do.
I'll try to remember to have Trevor make a video so I can give you all a visual of him. It's so hard to explain.... I can see so much of his personality coming back but at the same time, sometimes I look at him and just see a shell of the person I once knew. I love hanging out with him and he still cracks me up with off the wall comments or corrects my grammar. I have always said he was the smarter one of us two even though I had the degree.
Right now we are working on getting him a customer fit wheelchair. We've actually been working on this for months, but Medicaid stinks to say the least. It's a full time job to try and just keep up with what they tell you/ don't tell you but would make your life sooo much easier. If we have to pay for the wheelchair with the pay upfront discount of $1600 it still comes in at $5600. That is just insane!! it's not even motorized (they feel he won't need this. I know Trevor and know he'd love it a little too much haha) so we've been doing fundraisers because we can't get Medicaid to give us a straight answer on what they will cover. I keep telling Trevor we will forever have that wheelchair in our house as an actual chair. haha it will be the most expensive piece of furniture we will own probably. haha
I don't know what else to say other than a HUGE THANK YOU! Every donation, prayer, and thought helps. We truly appreciate it!!
Let me know if you have any questions. Email me: felicia.fox@hp.com (This is my work email so I know I won't miss it like in my personal email that I haven't had time to fully look at in a long time)
Also add him or myself on FB to keep up :Trevor Ware. Just send a note saying that you are from the forum.
