Christopher's Rehab/Recovery 13

Saturday, May 15, 2010, 9:30 pm Well, last night I promised that I'd tell you about 'Friday Family Fun Night'.  We have a tradition in our home.  Every Friday night we, as a family eat dinner at home together.  Our friends, Mae and Roby always join us, along with any of our kids' friends who are available.  We eat inside or out on the patio, depending on the weather and the menu changes from week-to-week.  It is frequently pizza and salads, but sometimes it's Chinese, Thai or Indian.  Occasionally on a cold winter day I'll make a big pot of soup.  It's always casual, always includes wine and is always full of fun and fabulous conversation!  There's nothing more enjoyable than conversation among varied age groups.  So last night, because Friday Family Fun Night couldn't take place in our home, we brought it to 'The Friendly Cafe here in the hospital.  Paul picked up pizza and salads and we had a wonderful time together!  Christopher's friends MacKenzie, Alex and Logan (photo below) joined us, along with Emily and her friend Julia, Nick, Mae and Roby, Chris' room mate Kiet and his mom, Pattie, and their extended family.  It felt so very 'normal'...something we haven't experienced much of these past four weeks!  Today was a big day for us!  We were allowed to take Christopher out of the hospital for about an hour.  We walked up the street several blocks to one of our favorite bakeries here in Oakland called 'Bakesale Betty'.  They make a mean chicken sandwich for lunch, and when Chris saw the piles of rolls behind the counter he asked them how many they make a day.  They told him that they typically sell 1800 - 2000 of them!  We sat outside on the sidewalk at 'ironing board' tables and stools, enjoying the beautiful day and another step closer to getting our lives back.   Christopher was in a bit of a funk this afternoon, seeming to disagree or take issue with most everything we said.  We noticed that he was getting frustrated with the questions that we were asking him.  One of the things that he will struggle with for a while is that he either doesn't necessarily understand what it is that we are asking him, or he doesn't understand the concept behind the question.  Today we were asking him about a bet his friend, MacKenzie's mom had made with her.  He told us the outcome of the bet but we wanted to know what the bet was.  He got quite angry with us when we pressed him and we finally gave up, assuming that he just doesn't remember the full concept of 'a bet'.  He also got frustrated with me when I asked him if he remembered how to make egg salad, something he used to do all the time.  He told me that he did, so I asked him to walk me through it.  That clearly annoyed him.  We know that he is being questioned and tested constantly by his therapists, doctors, and us, so we are going to back off for now unless we need to know something that it is absolutely necessary.  I'm sure that he is tired of being in the hospital, frustrated with being poked, prodded and questioned endlessly and mostly, missing home, including his bed and his buddy, our Great Dane, Chief!   Christopher's soccer coach, Chris Hoffman and his wife Kelly surprised him this morning when they came in to see him.  It turns out that their son is here for surgery because he broke his tibula playing soccer yesterday.  His friend Justin stopped by for a visit, but he was sleeping, so they didn't get a chance to talk. Another friend, Lizzy came around 4:00 and we enjoyed listening to Chris tell story after story.  One thing that I know is going to drive me crazy is how he is already using his accident, coma and 'near-death' experience to his advantage.  At one point when he said, "Hey, I almost died..." Lizzy said, "Don't pull the death card on me!"  I got such a kick out of that!  After she and her dad had left, she texted me some very sweet things (yes, I now have full-on texting conversations with my 13-year-old son's friends!) and with her permission, I'd like to share them with you: "Thank you so much, mrs. Ackerman!  I loved seeing chris :)  It was so amazing seeing him.  I missed him so much!"   "I'm sorry that I started crying when I saw him, I just missed him so much and i was so amazed at how perfect and together he was!" "I'm so proud of the way he's recovered.  He is exactly the same...except before he couldn't pull the death card on me :)"  (Lizzy and Chris in photo) This evening when Christopher's nurse checked his vitals she noticed that he had a fever of 101.5 so she called his doctor in to look at him.  He has had a swollen lymph node on the right side of his neck since Wednesday and he's been coughing.  Because he had pneumonia when he was in the ICU, she ordered a blood work-up and a chest x-ray.  His blood has been drawn and the results will take from 24 to 72 hours, and we just came back from Radiology.  Now we wait... About a half hour after speaking with his doctor, our friend, Dr. Kevin who is an ER doctor here at Children's stopped by to say 'hi'.  When I told him about the fever, he said that in patients with severe brain trauma, the immune system basically shuts down within 12 hours of the injury.  It then takes time for it to recover and begin functioning again, so illness is quite common.   The plan was for me to sleep at home tonight and have Roby stay with Chris, but because of his fever, I have chosen to stay by his side.  Where else would a mother be... Love, Laura