Wiggling Toes Video

New Skill 6/25/10

On Friday, Wendy and I went to the hospital. Wendy had received a call that Greg had blood filling his stomach and they may need to operate. We went down together to check it out and sign any consent forms if necessary.

We met with the Gastro Surgeon and she said she would like to suction the blood and then use a scope to take a look at what was going on first, then the decision would be made on surgery. After a little while she returned to us and said that all was well. They had put in his feeding tube that linked directly to his stomach when they performed the trach surgery and the tube had wiggled loose a little. She was able to pull it into place again and the bleeding stopped. They are keeping an eye on his hemaglobins to make sure he isn't still bleeding, but it is still possible for it to get loose again.

Wendy and I went and got some lunch while they cleaned Greg up and did their assessments. When we returned we asked how everything went with his assessment. The nurse told us all was well and that he was awake. She had gone through the normal commands of having him wiggle his fingers and he did on both hands. She asked him to wiggle his toes and he did. Wendy and I looked at eachother and wondered if she misspoke or we misunderstood. She said it was more like a flex, but he did move his toes. We have been at the hospital umpteen times in the last 3 weeks and he has never once moved his toes- not a flex, twitch, nothing. There was a bit of a language barrier so we shrugged it off and went in to see him.

Sure enough as Wendy was talking to him his toes were twitching each time he would open his eyes. Wendy went back later and on command he can move his toes on both feet. That night Jenn and Brad witnessed it as well and the following day Wendy took Judy to see Greg and when they arrived, he was showing off his new skill for the nurses. Everyone is so surprised and so baffled. We don't know what it means if anything for long term recovery, but it gives us hope.

He will have a full assessment from the neurologist tomorrow and we will hopefully know more. Thank you for the continued prayers!

Surgery Success!

Surgery went well and Greg is resting. The trach is in and he has been fitted with his new back brace. They moved him across the hall out of Trauma ICU and into Rehab ICU. We are moving up in the world! Wendy went and visited him after the procedure and said he looked better then she expected. We can now see his sweet face, one more hurdle conquered!

Thank you everyone for your kind words, prayers, and thoughts. We love and appreciate you all!

Surgery Tomorrow

Tomorrow Greg is Scheduled for Tracheotomy surgery. We have not come to this decision lightly and we delayed it for a week in hopes that Greg would wean off of his ventilator on his own. We all feel really good about this choice, it will give Greg the opportunity to start physical therapy sooner and it will give him a better chance of avoiding such complications as pneumonia. We have been praying and consulting doctors, nurses, and friends and this truly is the best option for Greg at this time.

Tonight Matt gave Greg a very comforting and strengthening blessing which helped even further in putting us at ease. The procedure will only take an hour and afterwards it should only be about a week before he can talk to us, perhaps sooner.

I was talking to Judy today and she was saying that every set back has been for a reason. We have truly seen the hand of the Lord in Greg's recovery and pray his doctors and nurses will be guided with the Spirit as they tend to him. We are all in good spirits and just feel an amazing amount of peace at this time.

Please keep Greg in your Prayers tomorrow. We don't have a specific time right now, but any prayers as you remember Greg through the day would be greatly appreciated and well received!

Happy Father's Day 6/20/2010

Greg,

Today your wife and your children went and visited you at the hospital to wish you a Happy Father's day. We love you and pray for you daily, even hourly. You are constantly in our minds and our hearts.

Thank you for being you, for teaching us so much, for loving us when we were hard to love. Thank you for your strength, for continuing to fight even when it's difficult. Thank you for your constant support. For your smile, your laughter, your love of music that has become infectious in us all, your example. You have been and will continue to be an amazing father and a leader for us all.

Get well soon, we love you! Keep working hard on that breathing so you can talk to us soon! We are so proud of you! Happy Father's Day!

Breathing Improvements

Thursday night I visited Greg! When I arrived, Jenn was already there and he was just starting to wake up after a breathing treatment. He was exhausted, so he didn't respond very much to our conversation even though you could tell he wanted to. He gave me some good hand squeezes and struggled to stay awake while we were there. Jenn took off to go help Judy with a shower and I stayed with Greg a while longer. His blood pressure was steadily higher then we have been seeing it (about 145/70). He is completely off blood pressure medication again. I stayed with Greg for a while until he was ready for me to go :)

I spoke with his nurse who told me that he was on the C-pap (breathing on his own) for 4 hours that morning! That is fantastic and no wonder he is so tired! It is a great improvement and we look forward to him continuing to improve so they can take the tube out.

Friday Judy went to the hospital and had her stitches out. She can now keep the bandage off of her leg (which was irritating her) and she can shower without wrapping her leg in a bag! Woohoo! She is healing nicely, but it hurt to take out all of those stitches. Wendy said there were about 30! She did great though and afterwards Wendy and Judy had a visit with Greg. Greg didn't have c-pap time today, he was too tired from the day before- so they will try again Saturday. His numbers all still look good. He is a fighter. Keep praying for Greg, especially his lungs so that we can get that tube out and help ease some of his frustration!

Chest Tubes are out!

Today I got an update from Wendy, who spent most of the day at the hospital waiting for Greg's doctor so they could have a meeting. The meeting was set for 4:30, but after being told "just 20 more minutes" several times- it finally happened at 7:45. Which was good, because by that point Greg had kicked Wendy out of his room, motioning for her to go home and tickle the kids for him.

They removed Greg's chest tubes after they determind that no more fluid was accumulating. They will still continue with their daily chest Xrays to moniter any fluid build up, but they were fairly confident we are past that.

Yesterday they also put Greg on just the bipap (off of the ventilator) for the first time. He lasted a full 2 hours, which is FANTASTIC for his first time.

The doctor's meeting with Wendy was all about performing a tracheotomy on Greg so that if he needed to remain long term on the ventilator, he would be able to have a little more mobility for starting physical therapy. It is easier to wean off of, but it is another proceedure which carries its own risks. They would also be changing trach tubes for smaller ones as they weaned him off so it would be multiple proceedures.

Wendy spoke with Judy and also Jenn about their feelings and we have decided as a family to hold off for now. We are going to give Greg another week and see how he is doing. The doctor really had no reason why it was medically necessary for Greg at this time- it is more so common protocol for them. Greg is doing so well, we didn't want to set him back and add risk when it really isn't necessary at this point.

So we are moving in a posative direction! Thank you everyone for all of your love and support! We aren't sure who all has received the link to this blog, but please feel free to pass it on to anyone you think would be interested in following Greg and Judy's recovery! Also, please feel free to post any comments, questions, and such that you wish. We all wish to do our best in keeping everyone up to date as much as possible! We love you all!

No Back Surgery, For now

Today I have had several people contact me looking for updates.

Judy is doing well, recovering beautifully. She over did a little bit on Sunday when she had her follow up appointment for her leg and then went to see Greg. She is surprising us all with how well emotionally she is doing. She is a strong lady, definately has some Stokes in her :)

Greg is stable. After the incident Wendy described with Greg pulling his breathing tube out his numbers went down a bit (to be expected when you pull your breathing tube out, there is some readjustment time). They also found that Greg had quite a bit of fluid in his chest cavity around his lungs. They felt it best to perform a proceedure to add chest tubes to drain the fluid. The proceedure was complete on Monday afternoon.

Matt and I, Wendy, and Jenn and Brad went down the the hospital yesterday to check in on Greg and also meet with the Neurosurgeon. Greg's numbers are improving, they have put him back on blood pressure medication slightly to bring his pressure up a tad. His breathing machine is down to only 40% oxygen which is wonderful and he keeps initiating his own breaths.

When we met with the Neurosurgeon, he told us that at this point they will not be performing back surgery. The whole purpose of adding hardware into his back would be to secure things in place long enough for the bones to heal themselves and fuse. Since Greg has been lying still, his bones can actually start to heal and fuse without the surgery. Once he is off the ventilator and chest tubes he can start physical therapy. At that point, to add further stability and allow him to start learning how to use his wheelchair, they will fit him with a custom brace to hold his back and neck in alignment. Hopefully it will heal well and fuse itself and we can skip surgery all together, but if it doesn't fuse or doesn't heal properly they will re evaluate the possibility of surgery at a later date. So lets pray for his spine to heal well, surgery just adds further risk, so this hiccup is possibly a blessing after all.

Greg Likes to Keep Things Exciting

Nobody likes a breathing tube, especially Dad. So who could really blame the man for pulling it out early this morning when the nurse wasn't looking? Accidental or intentional? We'll never know, but the nurse was leaning accidental. She thinks he tried to scratch his head and got his finger caught on the way down... Without incident they were able to re-intubate him and get his breathing back on track. He is looking good, but the staff has decided to increase his sedation a bit to keep the excitement in his room to a minimum. He was groggy when I saw him today, but he opened his eyes and waved me over when he heard my voice. Then he gave my hand a big squeeze and went right back to sleep. =)

Today was a Good Day

Last night Wendy got a phone call that they were lowering the level of sedation and Greg was waking up. She went down to the hospital and had a great visit. Greg was laughing, crying, and genuinely responding to what Wendy was discussing with him. They have set Greg's shoulder and fashioned his arm with a sling, but his other arm he was freely using to scratch his healing noggin and try and pull his Oxygen sensor off his other hand.

Today we went down to the hospital and we were able to see Greg right after they had changed one of his lines. He was awake and glad to see us. They have dropped back his oxygen to 40% and he is now completely off the Blood Pressure Medication. He is still initiating all his own breaths and doing really well. We were able to talk to him and he responded by shaking his head yes or no, squeezing Matt's hand, rubbing Matt's knuckles with his thumb, and smiling. The nurses are all very impressed with his recovery so far. He is for sure a fighter. We asked Greg if he would like his TV turned on and we got an enthusiastic yes. We visited for a while and assured him that everyone in Utah is praying for him and thinking about him. He was very glad to hear Judy is ok and recovering well. Brad told him that his ward dedicated their fast to him and Judy which seemed to touch his heart. We told him Saxon wants to come out and see him and teased that we wouldn't be able to pry her away at the end of visiting hours which made him smile. We joked a lot and kept things light, let him know we love him, let him know we would be visiting often, and assured him that he is healing and doing great - just to relax and let his body heal/rest.

As we were getting ready to go the neurologist assistant came in to let us know he was getting ready to remove the Inner Cranial Pressure Moniter from his head since his numbers have been consistantly good. It's just another indicator that he is continuing to stubbornly fight, which is one of the many things we love about Greg. It's a long road ahead of us, but today I certainly felt hope and a bit of peace.

Judy Recovering at Relief Society President's Home

Today Matt and I went and visited Judy at her Relief Society President's Home. She was in good spirits and extremely alert. Her chest is still hurting quite a bit, but her leg is doing great. She told us that she is feeling more stable when she gets up and she is keeping on top of those exercises she needs to do to get stronger. She has a little plastic contraption she has to breathe into and some stretches to keep her foot mobile. She is certainly a Stokes! Stubborn as can be and determined to heal twice as good as she was before. She said she is pretty sure that her Dad is with her or someone. She said someone keeps coming by and wiggling her toes on her hurt leg.

We had a nice visit and talked a bit about the accident and gave her the most recent update on Greg. Mostly we talked about other things and admired the beautiful garden that she gets to look at all day through the sliding glass door in her room. Wendy and Brian took the girls by to see her in the evening and she had taken her walker and moved herself out of bed and into the living room to watch some TV. It is great to see her so proactive and getting around already! We are very proud of her and we will be back with our kiddos on Friday to visit with her.

Dad Remained Stable and Mom Completes Surgery

Dad remained stable throughout the night. Because of the intubation, he needed to remain sedated. This sedation made the hourly neural tests impossible. The doctors needed a way to monitor the bleeding and pressure in his brain. To do this, they inserted a sensor into his skull that gave a reading of the internal pressure. The initial readings were less than half of the value that doctors look for when they feel concern. It was a wonderful indication that dad's bleeding was slow and had not been a threat during his sedation to that point.

Dad was over-breathing the ventilation machine, which is a fantastic sign. The machine was not breathing for him, as he was initializing his own breaths. He was receiving added oxygen, but the doctors were able to reduce the assistance from the initial 100% down to 55% assistance.

The short term plan for dad, in the best case scenario, is to leave the intubation in place and slowly reduce the blood pressure medication as he learns to self-regulate. Once he maintains his own blood pressure and continues initializing his own breathing with reduced assistance, they will take him in for surgery where they will fuse his T3 through T5. Once this is complete, they will remove the intubation and end the sedation.

Mom's surgery went well. She continued to recover and was kept hospitalized for the full day. She was too dizzy to stand on the first day, but was progressing as doctors had hoped.

Initial CHP Accident Notice

The accident occured at 8:59 am according to the initial CHP accident notice. We are still waiting for the official accident report. Both mom and dad were taken to Valley Medical Center for treatment.

Mom sustained a shattered tibia and fibia in her left leg. She was badly bruised by the seat belt and sustained broken ribs. She suffered no head injuries. After assessing the extent of the breakage, the doctors decided it was best to do immediate surgery to stabilize her leg with a titanium rod. She went into a four-hour surgery at 6pm. The surgeons were pleased with the results.

Dad sustained the full force and impact of the collision. Initial X-rays showed bleeding on his brain, and a very clear destruction of three vertebrae in his upper back above the shoulder blades. His Thoracic vertrebae numbers 3, 4 and 5 had been crushed so violently and substantially as to make the compression on his spinal cord "complete." While not severed in two pieces, it was clear from the very first images that he would not recover neural functioning. He had become paralyzed from the nipple down. A full MRI later that day showed many broken ribs and a broken clavical.

Because the spinal cord was so severely damaged, there was no benefit to be gained from immediate surgery to stabilize his spine. Instead, attention was turned to assessing and monitoring his internal cranial bleeding and to stabilize his blood pressure. In the initial neural tests, dad knew the date, who we was, etc. and was able to grip strongly with both hands. When I arrived, he knew who I was and expressed concern for his wife. The doctors were pleased with his abilities and it appeared the bleed in his brain was slow and was not effecting his neural functioning.

Dad's initial blood pressure dropped due to shock. When the spine is injured, the body does not know how to react and its ability to self-regulate has to be re-learned. He was given medication to elevate his blood pressure. Over time this medication will be reduced until he is able to self-regulate once again.

By the evening of June 5th, dad's lungs began to fill with fluid. Due to his years of the mystery "coxy/valley fever/sarcoidosis"and his triumph over H1N1, he has been sensitive to breathing problems. His body was creating fluid as a defense reaction to the bruises he sustained to his lungs. Because he was working so hard to breathe through the secretions, and to enable the nurses to remove the fluid, dad was intubated and sedated. Once the tube was in place and the secretions removed, his breathing was steady and comfortable. He was stable and resting.

The Morning of June 5th, 2010

Job 2.3 - And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

On the morning of June 5th, 2010 a ferocious car crash forever altered the lives of Greg and Judy Wheelwright...