Hello Everyone,
Well I guess we will be going home in morning. Kimberly has been in the hospital for 38 days today(will be 39 total). That is a long time for a hospital stay. We are excited to be going home. Today was her last day of rehab here at the hospital. They have been great and helped her improve, quickly. It has been amazing to see the progress made in the 2 weeks of rehab. Prayers have been answered. But the healing won’t stop just because we are going home. She will still get 3 days of therapy plus all the things that I will make her do. I am not going to baby her, I am going to make her work. I want to help her get stronger not help her stay weak. We all have to be strong and make her work to get her back to normal. Her vision still has a lot of improving to do. This has always worried me. This is something that rehab can’t teach her. But as the brain heals it should improve. We want to thank everyone for the prayers, cards, calls, and visits.

Well see everyone at HOME!!!!!!

Hey guys, this is Kimberly! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for all your support. You have been great and I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate you guys and love you guys so much. I am doing great and hopefully will be going home on Wednesday so pray for me and maybe I get to go there. I am so grateful for everyone’s support and cannot believe all the outpouring of love that I have felt. This is very difficult but everyone’s support makes it easier. I just thank you so much and appreciate everything that has been done.

Love,
Kimberly

Sunday, A day of Rest?

Today was full of events and rest for Kimberly. Kimberly only had speech today, which was about 30 minutes long. The therapists could not believe how much Kimberly had improved from weekend to weekend. She was able to rest for a few hours before she had visitors. This evening we went to On The Border for dinner. By the time she was finished with dinner, she was ready to go back and sleep for a little while. But don’t worry everyone, she sent her mom and grandparents to Marble Slab for ice cream. She had to get her sweets. Tomorrow starts full rehab again. Therefore, she had better get some rest.

Went to Eat!!!!

Today, Kimberly is doing great. She was able to use a day pass and get out of the hospital for a few hours. We went to eat at Red Rock Canyon, which has a view of beautiful Lake Hefner off the patio. Kimberly got one of their specialties, the rotisserie chicken. After eating, she wanted to drive and see at Oklahoma City, I think she just wanted to stay out of the hospital. She was out for around 3 hours. It was great for her and everyone else just to see her happy and feeling well. She did realize that she is in no shape to drive. After finding that out, she let Billy drive. Just playing, she noticed that she could not see very well when we were entering Lake Hefner Parkway. The patch might help with this problem. After all this, she decided she needed a nap. I think the nap will last until tomorrow morning. She also had one to two hours of rehab today. If she is feeling up to it tomorrow, we might go do something else. You can see in the pictures she is still beautiful and I am still pretty rough looking, but that has always been the case with us.

New Room!!!

Well guys, Kimberly moved up in the world to room number 378. She went from 150 sq ft room to a 400 sq ft room. The new room has a full kitchen with dishes and a dishwasher (and that doesn't mean Jacob), living room, a bedroom with a normal double bed, and a bath room with a tub. It has one TV in the living room and one TV in the bedroom.

Kimberly got a day pass for Saturday, so she wants to go eat somewhere. The purpose of the day pass is to see how well she handles being out and about. The doctors will reevaluate her on Monday and maybe just maybe go HOME on Wednesday. Although she will be at home, the rehab will not stop. It will just be outpatient at that point.

By the way, we had two cookies left to eat this morning. She asked for them last night, but after looking at them, she decided that they were a little too done. I guess the old oven didn't cook each cookie the same.

Eye-opening afternoon!!!

Yesterday, Kimberly had an eye-opening afternoon. For speech, she watched a video that showed the affects and after affects of a stroke. Up until this point, she had not heard anyone say that she had a stroke. All she heard was she had a bleed in the brain. However, the video made her realize that she is ahead of the recovery curve. Now that is knows what happened she could not believe that she was able to call me and say what was wrong with her on July 19th.

This morning she was able to put her hair in a ponytail all by herself. She is getting stronger by the hour. The only problem we are going to have with Kimberly, is her getting to brave and trying to do things by herself. For the next few months she needs 24-hour care. This should not be a problem for her family, my family, and I to provide but this will be a problem for her, Miss Independent, to accept.

She almost slept all night!!!

Kimberly had a great night. She only woke up once all night long. This morning for OT, Kimberly had to bake cookies. This is great for her because she cannot get enough sugar. Some of you might know of the cupcake issue. Her sister-in-law, Beth, was nice and baked her some cupcakes. Kimberly got the 12 cupcakes at 6:00 P.M. one day and the next day after she ate lunch only one cupcake remained in the pan. However, today is a new day without cupcakes, but she has the peanut butter cookies. I will let you guys know how long they last.

She loves all the comments that have been left so far. Please continue the comments help lift her spirits.

Kimberly asked me(Jacob) to post some pictures of the anniversary dinner for everyone to see how pretty she looked. And how ruff I look after a month of sleeping in waiting rooms.

Update!!!!

Hello everyone. This is Jacob. Kimberly is doing great and improving everyday. She is getting around 5 hours of rehab a day and hopefully will get more than 5 hours in the future. Currently is she wearing a sling and mitt on her right hand and arm. The purpose of this is not to be mean but to make her use her left side. She can use it when she wants to. Kimberly is also wearing an eye patch, which she needs to switch from eye to eye every 2 hours. The eye patch will help with double vision and improving her overall vision.

It looks like it will be a long recovery, but she is improving rapidly everyday. Thank everyone for the prayers, cards, and visits. You guys have been very uplifting for her and me. The pictures are of her working and sleeping with a bunch of animals that visitors have given her.

Oh by the way, we had our first wedding anniversary yesterday (Monday, the 18th). We had a private dinner, watched our wedding DVD, and ate the year old wedding cake. She was able to get ready for dinner and her mom went and bought her a dress that she was able to wear to eat dinner.

Intro

Hi! For those who don't know the background, here's a quick synopsis of how we got here. Kimberly has a congenital disorder called Areteriovenous malformation (AVM) in her brain - basically that's a cluster of blood vessels that aren't formed correctly. On July 19th, one of the vessels bled and the physical effects were basically the same as that of a stroke, causing her to lose some function on her left side.

Thanks to prayers of MANY people (far too numerous to list here), after three weeks in ICU, having a shunt put in (and making friends with most of the nurses in the 6th floor ICU) Kimberly is in a room at Jim Thorpe Rehab (which is physically in the hospital but not part of the hospital).

Currently, Kimberly has between four and six hours of therapy a day (split between speech, OT, and PT). Some of her therapy has been to play with the Wii - I'm jealous! (A side note here - Jacob tried to get the dr. to write and "order" for her to have a Wii at home...he was not successful in that endeavor.) But, someone in the know (either a therapist or dr., not sure which) that saw her yesterday was really impressed with the progress she's made with the therapy up to this point!

The purpose of this blog is twofold. First (and most obvious), it's a place where we can post information about Kimberly's recovery/progress so that those who aren't here can at least know how well she's doing. Second, at some point (I think in the very near future), Kimberly will actually take over the updating so everyone can hear from her instead of getting secondhand information!

Posted by Beth (sister-in-law)