Our Journey To Healing Day 103

Philippians 4:13

 ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Isn't it amazing how we can remember the most random little things (like the exact moment as a child when I learned how to spell my maiden name: Bundenthal) or how huge memories can sometimes just be blocked out? For some reason, the whole concept of memories really has not amazed me until now. How cool is it that God allows us to REMEMBER things? He already knows what has happened and what will happen, yet He allows us to recall our past.

As I laid in bed last night, I let my mind wander back to the night before the accident. I have toyed with really living that night out before but never would let myself go there. Last night, I was pretty emotional as I remembered our last night in Bunker, our last night without a wheelchair, our last night together for 100+ days.

It was Tuesday, June 14th and I had just gotten off of work around 5pm. I headed toward home with the thought of swinging by Kroger and getting dinner started. Derek texted me around 5:15 to say he would be home later because of a work project. I stopped at Kroger and grabbed a few groceries but decided to swing by a local boutique that I had a giftcard at. I thought I would do a little "after work" shopping before officially heading back to Bunker.

In typical LeAnne style, I got caught up at the boutique and ended up really liking one of the pricier items in the store. I texted and called Derek to ask if he minded if I spent above my gift card amount on this jean jacket. He didn't answer (he was riding back home), so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the overpriced item hoping he would appreciate fashion as much as I did.

When I got home, he was actually already there standing on the front porch tucking Bison (his motorcycle) in for bed. He was giving me the "eye" as I climbed out of the car with the groceries. I was  trying to hide the boutique bag between the Kroger bags when he said, "Whatcha got there??" I then confessed I bought a jean jacket that I loved and insisted on convincing him how much I would wear the jean jack and how versatile it was. He gave me a VERY hard time so I just decided to stuff the bag in my closet in hopes he would just forget about it.

I started to get dinner ready while Derek prepared our nightly ritual. Pulling our couch out into a bed, getting Friends started, and setting up our Yahtzee game. Derek was actually doing the Military Diet which meant dinner was 3oz of chicken, a cup of broccoli, 5 saltine crackers and 1/2 a banana. Yum!! We stayed up a little later (9:30) that night and I decided to just wait to do dishes until the next morning.

Early that next morning (5:45am), I woke up to Derek getting ready to leave for work. I shouted down from the loft "Are you sure you don't want to take the truck? I think it rained last night and it is suppose to rain tonight". He said he was good, yelled back that he loved me, and shut out door. As always, I laid there listening to the screen door shut and Bison fire up. I said a little prayer for him and laid my head back down. The next time I opened my eyes was to realize I never received a text saying he was safe. I texted him twice. Once around 6:40 and another at 6:50. I received the call from Derek's phone around 7:14am from David at Family Services asking me to get to Eskenazi Hospital as soon as possible.

The next few hours I remember to a tee. I threw on my new jean jacket and rushed out of Bunker. I drove like a mad woman towards downtown , trying to get Siri to give me directions to Eskenazi Hopsital through tears. It was a disaster. And as you can imagine, I did not have time to clean up last nights dinner, which meant that when my fantastic brother and sister-in-law made it back to Bunker 2 days later, IT SMELLED SO BAD.

So there you go. Memories.

For the record, I wore that jean jacket EVERY SINGLE DAY for the first 2.5 weeks in the ICU (it was freezing in there). It is now a running joke every time I pull on my little jean jacket.

A lot has happened since our last update and I am so happy to say that Derek's neck brace is FINALLY off! It is so nice to be able to see him looking a bit more like himself. The whole physical act of removing the neck brace, aka scarf, was a little less dramatic than I was hoping. A short coat doctor came in around 6:30pm and just said, "You can take your neck brace off now." And in 10 seconds, Derek had the brace off and then threw it at me. Ta-da! His neck muscles seem to be catching on quickly and he doesn't seem sore. He also has been sleeping with a pillow, which he wasn't allowed to do before! Side note: We have learned that when short coat doctors come to talk to you, the news is always good. The long coat doctors are the ones to be scared of. A long coat doctor would never send in a short coat doctor to give a bad announcement, like "We are sending you back to Northwestern Hospital because you had a blood clot." Those announcements are saved for long coat doctors. Now you know.

Along with the neck brace, he has also been not wearing his Ted Hose. In some earlier photos, you may have notices he had on white stocking which were helping his blood pressure remain stable. Since the accident was over 3 months ago, they have allowed us to start weaning off the hose and he can now just wear regular socks. This is made getting ready  in the morning much easier and we now don't get as many stares on the streets.

Last Wednesday, we found out that he has been fighting two different infections. He is now on antibiotics for both but these often leave him feelings very tired. He is a major trooper and actually hasn't missed a single therapy session. Because of the infections, we were actually given the private room we always wanted. Not quite the way we dreamed of having our own room but we will take it!

Since the infections are still clearing, we may need to stay here a little longer than expected. Our release date is still up in the air but we should be back home by the middle of October. I am heading to Indy next week to move us into our new apartment which we are very excited about.

In closing, please be praying for the infections, energy level, and also his heart rate. It continues to be fairly high.

And thank God today for memories.

With Love,

The Lavenders