Intensive Care
Steve's sister, Christine, and her family arrived at the hospital around midnight. Everyone else left including my sons's, Chad and Chase, who left with their dad. I didn't get much sleep that night because I didn't want to miss an opportunity to go in to see Steve. He had been given morphine for the pain so he slept pretty good that night.

Steve's mom and dad, Bonnie and Al, arrived the next day with his youngest sister, Donna. They had driven from Missouri. His brother, Ron, had driven from Indiana and got there that afternoon. My brother and his wife, David and Patty, also arrived from Dallas. When Steve saw his mom and dad come into the room he just started crying. He was on a stryker frame and turned down facing the floor. His mom crawled under the bed by his face, wiped the tears from his eyes, and continued to tell him how much she loved him. He called out to his dad and said "I love you Dad".

The stryker frame bed allowed the hospital staff to keep him turned from his stomach to his back every few hours. This would help prevent breakdown of the skin (bed sores). This really scared him because when it was time to turn him the nurses would strap his body in and quickly, on the count of three, flip the bed over real fast. One night Steve was trying to tell the nurses that his left arm was not strapped in before they turned him. They must not have understood him because as they turned him over his left arm was flung off the bed. Steve said when this happened it caused him to jerk his neck, even with the traction on his head. It scared him so bad that he started trembling. He asked them to come and get me. He was so upset when I got in there. I had them call his doctor. The doctor had X-rays taken of his neck to see if anything had changed. According to him everything looked the same as it did before this incident. Ron and Christine swear to this day that Steve had a slight grip in his left hand before this happened but doctor's report does not confirm this. He stayed on this type of bed until after his surgery, to stabilize his neck, which was a week after the accident.

Steve smoked about a pack and a half of cigarettes a day before his accident. This postponed the surgery because they had to get his respiratory system stabilized. He was on 100% oxygen to help him breath. If I understood it correctly, at this level of paralysis his breathing came from his diaphragm instead of his lungs. Mucas continued to build in his lungs which caused him to be at a greater risk for recovery after his surgery. After a week of continual respiratory treatments he had the surgery.

I had to convince the doctors and nurses that I needed to be with him while he was in intensive care. I explained that I knew absolutely nothing about this type of injury or how to take care of him. I told them that when it came time for us to go home that none of them would be coming with us. I needed to learn as much as I could from them and could not do that by coming to visit for 15 minutes every 2 hours. They all agreed and the doctor gave the staff permission for me to stay with Steve at all times, as long as I got my rest. I stayed at the hospital with Steve night and day, going home for a couple of hours every couple of days. Chad and Chase were being moved around from family and friends homes to allow me to stay with him. I saw them probably once a week until Steve was moved to rehabilitation. I hated this for them but they understood that Steve needed me to be with him and they were in good hands.

The waiting room was filled with visitors coming to give their support. The phones rang continually with people calling in to check on us. Our church continued to pray for us. Prayer chains were started by several of our friends and had gone nation wide. Our friends and family took care of our house and anything else that needed taken care of. We were amazed at how much support we were given. I was holding up pretty well. I stayed very busy and got very little sleep. I took walks around the hospital to give me a break every now and then. One day I ended up outside in the parking lot getting very angry. I cried for an hour then I just started talking to God. He and I had came to a pretty good understanding that day. I would keep my faith in Him and He would give me the strength to get through this. He hasn't let me down yet!

The night before his surgery I had gone home for a few hours. When I got back to his room the nurse that had been with him that night called me out to tell me something. She said that she had been in there with him for awhile trying to keep him encouraged. He had been questioning whether it would have been better for him to have died. She asked me to stay with him that night and keep him on a positive note. Together, Steve and I prayed. We talked about the things in life that we enjoyed so much. Mostly I explained to him that he had two very beautiful daughters that loved him very much and would need him around to help them grow up. I also reassured him that I would always be there for him, no matter what the outcome of his paralysis would be. He decided that his life was worth continuing and was ready for his surgery.

His doctor came out after his surgery and sat down in front of me. He explained that Steve's 6th vertebrae bones were completely shattered and splintered. He placed a fusion block in it's place and wired it to the 5th and 7th vertebrae. His neck was now stabilized and he would be able to hold his head up on his own. The doctor found alot of spinal fluid and bleeding when he was cleaning up the bone fragments. This, along with the nature of the accident, gave the doctor the indication that his spinal cord had been severed. He told me at that time that he felt Steve's paralysis would be permanent. He would be paralyzed from the chest down. He explained further that we still needed to keep up hope and gave a 3 month window for any signs of movement. Even a wiggle of a toe could be a good sign. Reality finally set in and hit me like a ton of bricks.

He was placed on a respirator and brought back to the intensive care unit. Luckily they were able to take him off of the respirator the very next day. He was taken off of the stryker frame and put on this real neat bed that would inflate and constanly rotate under him. He stayed in intensive care while the doctor and respiratory therapists continued to treat him until he was able to breath on his own without oxygen. On July 21st he was moved out of intensive care and up to 5th floor to a private room. He remained there for eight days. Now it was time to move him to the rehabilitation center.

Rehabilitation
Steve moved from the hospital to the rehabilitation center, located just behind the hospital, on July 29th. It was a scary move for us because I had been able to stay with him during the night while he was in the hospital but we heard rumors that I would not be able to see him very much during his time in rehab. We later found out that family was encouraged to participate in his therapy. This made Steve feel better knowing that he would not have to go this alone. The nurses, therapists, and the doctor all explained that they wanted me (or any other family member) to be very much involved in his therapy, to help keep him encouraged.

We moved all of his things over to his new room. During transport, a nurse that was helping us dropped a flower arrangement off of the cart and broke it. This upset me badly because the pot was made of three cherub angels. The way it broke upset me the most. One of the angel's head was broken off at the neck. Earlier, while Steve was in the E.R., my mom gave Steve a small ceramic cherub angel and it also got broken by one of the nurses, the head broke off at the neck. We were able to glue both of them back together. My uncle made light of the situation. He said "both of these angels were able to be put back together so take it as a sign that Steve can be put back together too". We got everything set up in his room. After Steve ate his dinner we said our goodbyes and I went home. I was very scared at home by myself. Chad and Chase were at Christine's house and I would pick them up the next day.

While Steve was still in the hospital, before the move to rehab, the occupational and physical therapists started working with him on a few little things. OT started fitting him for splints for his hands. They wanted to make sure that his hands did not start closing up into a fist. PT starting doing range of motion exercises and sitting him up in a chair for as long as he could, without his blood pressure falling too much. Range of motion consisted of stretching his legs, feet, toes, arms, hands, and fingers. This was to keep him from having muscle atrophy.

The 1st day of therapy at rehab was very light. It was mostly for getting aquainted with his new therapists and to learn more about his injury. He was giving a manual that contained very helpful information about the effects his paralysis would have on his body. We were both real worried about going home and not knowing what to do. It was explained to us that their jobs were to help us with this as much as they could in a very short time. We were given authorization by our insurance company for only 6 to 8 weeks of rehabilitation. We had so much to learn in such a short amount of time.

Steve seemed to make very quick progress with his therapy. On his 3rd day he was able to manually move himself in a wheelchair approximately 45 feet!! By the 4th day he had several nurses and other therapists observing his sessions because they said he was a role model patient. He had alot of determination. He worked very hard when he was in his therapy sessions. He had a struggle with keeping his blood pressure up where it needed to be. When he was sitting up his blood pressure would drop and cause him to be very light headed. One morning his pressure dropped so low that he passed out on the nurse for about 15 to 20 seconds. In an effort to keep his blood pressure up his legs were wrapped tightly in Ace bandages and he wore a binder around his waist. This was to keep his blood pushed up to the upper part of his body as much as possible. Once his blood pressure was maintained he was able to put a full effort into his therapy.

Occupational therapy consisted of independant living training. With his level of paralysis, C-6, he could not use his hands or fingers. He was being taught how to feed himself with the use of special tools, such as a cuff fitting around his hand, to hold his eating utensils. He was also learning how to hold a hair brush, razor, and toothbrush to do his daily grooming. Dressing himself was also a part of his OT but he was never strong enough to be able to do this.

Physical therapy consisted of strengthening exercises. He first learned how to sit up and balance himself. His back and stomach muscles were paralyzed so he had to learn to do this without the help of those muscles. This took awhile! Once he learned his balance he started working out with weights to rebuild the muscles in his arms that were not paralyzed. Then they worked with him on picking his leg up, while in a sitting up position, and moving it from the floor to the workout table. Finally, they started teaching him how to transfer from his wheelchair to the bed and vice versa. He would have to continue this with his home therapists. It wasn't until a few months of continued work that he was able to transfer. Until he learned to do this he was being transferred by the use of a hoyer lift. Steve would laugh and say that he felt like a baby being carried by a stork!

Finally, after 3 months in the hospital and rehab, it was time to go home. The staff at rehab worked very hard with us to prepare us for going home. He was taking an early release and would have a home health agency for a couple of months. This was mainly due to the fact that I had broken my arm in April of 1997. I had surgery, to put a plate and screws in my arm, in September of 1997 (just before Steve was released to go home). The home health agency would be there to help us until my arm was healed, but no longer than 2 months. I was trained to administer the proper medication to Steve, transfer him, bathe him, change his catheter, and perform his bowel programs. I was becoming the nurse that I thought I wanted to be, when I was in high school, but never had the stomach to do. I was now called a 'caregiver'.

Steve's attitude had alot to do with the progress he was able to make. He tried to keep a very positive outlook. After doing so well during his therapy classes he would go back to his room to rest and some days get so depressed and cry. This type of emotion was expected out of him. I had been warned by the doctors, nurses, and therapists that he would go through several stages of depression. They explained that denial, anger, and deep depression were all part of the recovery process. Some warned me that he would take his anger out on me. They told me not to get too upset if he asked me to leave (forever). Steve never did or said anything that hurt me. He was very happy that I was staying by his side. He realized that I was suffering alot like he was. His depression was very minimal compared to what I had expected. He and I worked as a team to get us through this tragic event in our lives. People tell me that this sort of thing can either make or break a marriage. I must say that it has brought us closer together.

Helpful links about Spinal Cord Injury:
www.paralysis.com
www.psa.org
www.apacure.com
www.spinewire.com
This is the hospital that Steve was in for 3 months. We highly recommend them.
Baptist Rehabilitation Institute

Background Set by Lori's Background Boutique: www.backgroundboutique.com