Sunday, June 24

Sarah and Nate left today to go back to Alaska, so I (John) will be writing the blog.

 Today was a relatively quiet day. Overall, my mom's cuts and bruises are all healing quickly, and she's really getting back to looking like her. Her color is returning back to normal and the swelling has pretty much all gone away. She took another turn sitting up in the chair today. She remains unconscious, and we will be sure to quickly update everyone with any signs of her waking up.

This afternoon they took her for a more detiailed CT scan of her pelvis to determine more precisely the extent of the fracture and how it seems to be healing. We have not yet gotten the results back from that scan, so we don't know yet whether she will be going for pelvis surgery. Either way, the surgery on her arm will be progressing soon, possibly as early as tomorrow. She's not officially on the schedule, so we won't be too surprised if the surgery is pushed back to Tuesday.

She spent today breathing entirely on her own, with the ventilator not attached at all. She's been maintaining strong, regular breaths, which is really great for her as it helps keep her diaphragm from becoming weak. That is the last step required for her to be taken from the ICU to an intermediate care facility. It sounds like probably the plan though is to wait until after the surgery to move her, as she will need to go under anesthesia and be put back on the ventilator as part of the operation.

Tomorrow morning my dad will go to the apartment complex and be setting up the apartment, so we should have that in a few days when it becomes available to move into.

Spending time in the trauma ICU waiting room has put some real perspective on things for us. There are many others who have also been spending time waiting on their loved ones to heal, and there have been many examples of them waiting quite some time and having happy endings. This has helped us very much to keep our spirits up. There have also been some who are here with loved ones who have experienced more serious traumas. We really are so fortunate that my mom has been blessed to have so few and minor physical injuries which are very treatable.

Thank you again to all of you who have been following the blog and have been so supportive to my family. I know you all love my mother very much, and I hope we are able to tell you wonderful stories of improvement in the days/weeks/months to come.

 - John