Enroute to Rehab

Day 14. I'm talking to Mikele who is calling from the car, on the way to rehab. Aren't cell phones amazing? She's essentially posting to the blog (through me) while enroute! Tyler and Bob saw Dorothy off in the ambulance this morning. Then Bob drove home and picked up Mikele, who decided to ride in the car, because of her cold. Bob told Dorth they were going to follow her in the car, and then she seemed OK going in the ambulance.

Head 'er up, move 'er out...

Well, we're packing up the suitcases, stuffed animals and DVD's for a trip to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose. Rolf the iPod is coming too, and Tyler has loaned us his iPod port for easy listening. Thuley has been found, and is sitting in his station - watching over the D from the tray next to her bed. Dorothy will travel by special ambulance with a nurse for the trip. Mikele will ride up front, and Bob will drive. Aunt Tam is watching the house for us. Bob will take the train or fly home on Sunday.

Thanks to the ministrations of so many caring people, our freezers are filling up nicely with leftovers. Bob has the additional challenge of having tax season come upon us - so these meals are an absolute God-send. We are so very grateful.

We'll keep you posted from San Jose. We just heard today that they might have a laptop she can use, and there's Wi-Fi at the hospital! Yippee! I wonder if they use Wii in physical therapy...

Rehab Approved

Dorothy walked today, with some assistance! She's been officially approved to go to the rehab center in Santa Clara tomorrow. Mikele will ride with her in the ambulance. She'll still have an IV and a feeding tube to deal with. I keep reminding her to think about taking advantage of the offers for help from people living nearby. She's overwhelmed with the near-term logistics, but be forewarned, she may be calling on you folks!

Wednesday Noon

Bob says the plan is to transport Dorothy to the rehab center in Santa Clara tomorrow. Mikele plans to go with her, and stay someplace nearby. M's cold has progressed to the point where she has completely lost her voice.

Wednesday Morning

Day 13. Yesterday, Mikele told the nurses the nickname that Dorothy's brothers gave her when she was little - "Dorth Vader". She was a little terror - she ran the household with a tiny but iron fist. Of course now she's put on the velvet gloves. The nurses got a big laugh out of that. Bob's been spending nights with D, now that she's awake. He says nights are uneventful. They're getting ready to try weaning her off the feeding tube sometime soon.

Tuesday Evening

Dorothy had a good day today. The speech therapist was very respectful of her, and didn't talk down to her, and Dorothy responded well to that. She progressed two levels in the cognizance testing! She tried to make a few sounds, but she's frustrated by a lack of vocal control. She really tried to say something today, but without the wind behind it, she couldn't quite make enough sound for them to understand her. She definitely tried to say "Mom". Then the occupational therapist came, and Dorothy was able to copy shapes using a marker pen. On her own, she drew some emoticons: smiley :-) sad :-( bored :-| heart <3 and wrote her name. With the physical therapist, she learned more muscle control. She was able to sit up for awhile. She finds it very, very, frustrating, that her body doesn't respond the way she wants it to. While she progressed a tremendous amount today, she was very frustrated and sad, which is actually pretty appropriate, showing a good emotional health. The rehab center in Santa Clara now has all her reports, and they say she looks like a great candidate for their program. So now we're waiting for a final OK from their doctor, and a medical release from her doctor. We're hoping both of these will happen in the next few days.

Tuesday Morning

Day 12. Bob called Mikele this morning, and told her that Dorothy gave him his first hug since the accident. A lot of her motor control has been suppressed by the brain injury and swelling, so this is a big milestone, especially emotionally.

Monday Evening

It's been a tough day.

Mikele asks this, "of her blog-reading friends: Does anyone know where bun-bun and thulley are? She's holding on tight to the little seal that Kelcie brought her, and an old dragon I got for her when she was small. But I think she'd really like to see bun-bun and thulley.

She was resting well when I left her. Bob is staying the night, and I'll head back in the morning. The nurses remind me that we are on the on-ramp, with a really long, winding road ahead of us.

Good night, everyone. Pray for endurance and strength for all of us."

Pic from 2001.

Monday Noon

Day 11. Bob says: The surgery yesterday went well. It lasted about 2 hours. The oral surgeon says she lost very little blood. The respirator came right out, but she still has a feeding tube in her nose. Last night, she tried to pull it out twice. I stayed with her Sunday night, because she was a little freaked out by having her mouth wired shut. At one point she looked at me with a panicked look and pointed to her teeth. It broke my heart. When I went to leave last night, I said “good-night,” and with her eyes open wide, she shook her head "NO!" When I asked if she wanted me to stay, she nodded her head, “YES!” So I did. Her pulse is up high again, around 120 beats per minute. Her normal heart beat before the accident was around 70. She is doing a triathlon in healing, and her heart is showing it. Even when she sleeps, her little heart is going at 100-110. Last night she had trouble sleeping, and laid there in bed for a long time with her eyes open. The nurse came in and gave her a back rub, and she finally fell asleep. Thank you nurse Sarah.

Sunday Evening

Mikele says: Dorothy was moved from the recovery room back to her regular room. She woke up very well after surgery, and seems quite content. She has ice applied to both sides of her face to keep the swelling down, and a big bruise, but otherwise seems just fine. She was watching Fantastic Four with Bob, but now she's sleeping. Rest well, little angel.

Out of Surgery...

Dorothy is out of a successful surgery. The oral surgeon did not have to remove any teeth, and she is in the recovery room. Praise God!

In Surgery

Bob sent the following info this morning:

I am in the waiting room now, Dorothy went into surgery today at 8 AM to have her jaw wired so it can heal. What they will do is wire the top of her teeth to the bottom so it will take pressure off the mandible. No invasive surgery, but they may have to remove a tooth if necessary. It will be that way for 4 - 6 weeks. She will not be able to eat (liquid diet only).

I wanted to share the progress Dorothy has made so it can be posted to her blog. Her temperature is now down to 98 degrees, her pulse this morning was below 100. Her oxygen is good (above 90). We tend to watch her numbers a lot while we are here. What was amazing to watch was the assessment that the nurse did at the shift change yesterday. It went like this:

"Show me two fingers with your right hand." (she does it) "Good!"
"Show me two fingers with your left hand." (she does it) "Good!"
"Look to your right." (she does it) "Good!"
"Look to your left." (she does it) "Good!"
"Say AHHHHH". (she does it, weakly) "Good!"
"Wiggle your left toes." (she does it) "Good"
"Now wiggle your right toes." (she continues to wiggle her left toes)
"We will have to work on that later."

She is awake and she communicates via nods and hand squeezes. She looks very tired all the time. She likes to watch TV (last night we watched "Batman Begins").

They are prepared to release her to go to rehab, 12 hours after today's surgery. That means we will either be leaving for Santa Clara on Monday or Tuesday. The nurse thinks it will be Tuesday. Both Mikele and I will go at first, but I will return and she will stay there with her.

You can always tell when a crisis passes, when Mikele allows herself to be sick. It happened yesterday. I replaced her around 2 PM yesterday. And I am here by myself this morning. Since Mikele will be staying with Dorothy during her rehab this week, we need her to get better; so I will be taking her watch today.

Pic from 2006.

Sunday morning

Day 10. Dorothy goes into surgery to fix her jaw in just a few minutes (8 a.m.). The doctors decided to do the least invasive one. Please pray that she is able to tolerate the anesthesia well and that her throat doesn't swell after she has to be on the respirator during surgery. They promised that she would be back off the respirator before she wakes up.

Bob is down at the hospital now, wishing her well, but Mikele is home sick with a bad cold and doesn't want to take a chance that she will give Dorothy her cold. Please pray for Mikele, who is having a really hard time staying away.

Dorothy really loves all the comments everyone is sending in. Mikele reads them to her every day.

The doctors are saying that they believe Dorothy will be well enough to be transferred to the rehab facility very soon. We will let you know when we know.

A quiet night...

A post from Mikele:

Dorothy is enjoying a quiet night with her Dad and Tyler. She's watching Batman, Bob says, and enjoying it. The guys are playing cribbage.

Bob tells me that we are going to have to involve Tyler in rehab, because today when Dorothy's doctor asked her to do one of the neuro tests: "Can you raise two fingers?" she wouldn't do anything. Then Tyler said, "Dorothy, raise two fingers." And she did. She always would do whatever Tyler told her to!!

A personal note: I don't know the words to express how comforting these posts are - to know how much everyone is praying and caring, and to be able to see the smiles on Dorothy's face when we read them to her. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!!!

Friday Evening

Mikele says Dorothy was tired - pretty much wiped out - all day today. The jaw surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. It should take about six weeks for the jaw to recover, and yes it will be wired. The operative phrase is, "Liquid diet". I asked about the two-finger test she had trouble with much earlier, and Mikele says she can do that no problem now. She can also lift her arms. Mikele asks that everyone keep their prayers going.

Saturday Morning

Day 9. Mikele called on her way into the hospital this morning. We got the results of the CAT scan last night, and it's a good-news bad-news thing. The orbital bone isn't cracked. Both sides of her jaw are fractured. One fracture is non-displaced, which means the bones are in alignment. The other side is a minor displacement fracture - no chips, but a slight offset between the bones (28,29).

Friday Night - Minor Setback

Mikele just learned of a "tiny little setback". The oral surgeon came to check her tongue, and discovered that she has a minor jaw fracture. She may also have a broken orbital bone, which is beside her nose. They're getting her into a CAT scan tonight, and if the neuro surgeon clears her, they'll do surgery tomorrow, and her jaw will be wired shut for awhile.

Mikele says this answers some questions, about why her damaged lip didn't seem to hurt (it was numb from the jaw damage), and why she's been moving her jaw funny, side to side lately, experimenting with why it felt weird. You can't tell to look at her from the outside, but the oral surgeon noticed a lot of swelling on the inside, and when he touched her nose, she really winced.

It sounds like these complications will probably cause a delay in the move to rehab.

Mikele says: Fire up your prayer chains!

Friday Evening

It seems like Dorothy is getting a little better every time we get an update (and that's the way we LIKE it!). Mikele says she seems to wake up around 4-430 every afternoon. She's been more alert today, than ever. Her breathing has quieted down so much, that they were able to take the Oxygen cannula off her nose. Mikele says, "Her O2 number is fine, except that she keeps flicking the oxygen sensor off her finger. We keep putting it back. Then she waits until we're not looking, and flicks it off again." Her tongue is so sore, she can't even deal with an ice chip yet. It hurts to just move it. They've replaced the feeding tube that was in her mouth, with one that goes in her nose, which is much smaller and less uncomfortable.

She's sleeping really peacefully right now.

She'll be evaluated by a rehab specialist over the weekend, and they plan to begin the process of moving her to a rehabilitation facility early next week. This will likely be a move to somewhere else in the State. Santa Clara has been discussed.

Her brother Brighton drove down last night from Davis for just a quick visit today. He walked into the room, and her face lit up so much.

In Atascadero today, a friend of Mikele's said she stopped in at the beauty parlor. Their big screen TV was tuned to this blog. (HI GUYS! :-) It is so comforting to know that so many people care so much about Dorothy, and are pulling for her to recover.

Friday Afternoon

They pulled out Dorothy's ventilator and feeding tubes today. Yet another small step for Dorothy-kind! Her throat is very swollen, which makes breathing difficult, but she's toughing it out. Since her eyes are open, I asked if she's seeing much with them, and Mikele says, "Sure, she makes eye contact, and she's watching TV now!"

Friday Morning Later

More good news. The swelling has come way down in Dorothy's tongue - it's almost down to normal. Mikele and Bob expected Dorothy to be kind of sleepy as usual, when they got there this morning, but she was wide awake. Later on, they were listening to VH1, and Mikele asked if Dorth wanted her to turn off the music. NO - shakes her head! Hey, a new way to communicate! Would you like me to read you the letter that Michelle brought yesterday? YES - nods her head! Mikele reads the letter. Toward the end, Michelle says, "And now it's time for an anecdote." It's a cute story about the girls hanging out in a corner of the school for lunch. Dorothy finds strategic places in the shadows to place some fruit. Then she waits. At this point in the story, Dorothy smiles, hugely, around her ventilator tube. She knows what's coming... The story continues. After waiting awhile, there is the sound of a fruit squishing, a pause, and then... "Oh, [expletive deleted]..."

Friday Morning Early

Day 8. This just in from Mikele this morning: Bob slept at home last night for the first time since the accident. We're both looking pretty ragged - I have dark circles under my eyes for the first time since Dorothy was a baby!! But I slept like a baby last night - not one bad dream, not one wakeup. Bob said the procedure to remove the bolt went really well, and Dorothy stayed awake with him for a while afterwards. As he read to her, she squeezed his hand. I think she's really happy to be back from wherever she's been. We're heading down to the hospital in a few minutes and if there's any more good progress, we'll update. Something of interest to note: both of the last two days, we've seen the most activity starting at 7 p.m. Tam reminded me that Dorth has always been a night owl! And before I forget yet again...

THANK YOU to everyone, for your cards, your visits, your love and your prayers. They have really helped to sustain us these last days.

Woo Hoo! She Blinks!

Mikele just called, with the words, "I've got the most amazing post yet, for the blog!"

Dorothy's been drifting in and out of consciousness all day, as you read earlier. The Doctor came by at 5pm, when Mikele happened to be elsewhere. He said "I'd like to remove the pressure sensor bolt from her head, but I don't think she's awake enough." The Nurse said, "Oh yes, she is! Watch this!" She said, "Dorothy, open your eyes, real wide" ... and Dorothy opened her eyes, really wide. Then she said, "OK! Now, close your eyes tight" ... and Dorothy scrunched her eyes shut, really tight. She didn't just close them. She *scrunched* them closed!

Needless to say, the pressure sensor bolt isn't in her head any more.

Later on, the Nurse and Mikele were doing some things with Dorothy. The nurse said, "Now I want *you* to see it. OK Dorothy, open your eyes wide." Dorothy opened her eyes wide. "Now scrunch them shut" and she scrunched them shut. I suspect it was impossible to move Mikele from her spot by Dorothy, for the rest of the day.

Later, Mikele was talking to Dorothy, and said "Your friend Michelle was here." Dorothy's eyebrows were moving, as if to say, "Oh really? I know her!"

This is great progress! Mikele says she was supposed to expect that Dorothy wouldn't be able to think any more clearly than a 3-year old at this point in her recovery. Recovery. What a wonderful word!

Mikele was chatting on, and asked, "Would you like me to read from the blog?" and started reading from the pages of comments she'd printed out. Eventually, Dorothy's eyes started drifting shut. Mikele asked "Do you want me to read more? Blink twice if you do." ... and Dorothy blinked twice! Mikele read some more, and Dorothy's eyes started drifting closed again. Mikele asked again. Dorothy blinked twice again. Mikele read some more. That went on for awhile. When she read one of Dorothy's girlfriends' names, her eyebrows went up - "I know her! That's my friend!"

It appears that our Dorothy is just itching to bust out! Unfortunately, we won't know if she can talk, until the ventilator comes out, and that won't happen for awhile. Her tongue is so swollen, the Doctor is afraid she'd choke on it.

So now, she has to wait for her tongue to thtop clogging up her mouth, before thhee can finally athk for thum thocolate pudding! :-)

Woo hoo! She's awake and communicating! Now I think Mikele needs to teach her the Morse code. Kidding... :D

Pic from 2005.

Thursday Noon

Day 7. Mikele called with the noon update. Dorothy's still doing OK. She's come in and out of a low level of consciousness many times today. Mikele's staying close to the bed, since she never knows when those eyes will open again. She recognizes Mom's voice - her eyes open and move around, trying to follow, though we're not sure what she might be seeing. She spiked a 103 degree fever this morning, but that may just be the hypothalamus being not fully up to speed. She has some pneumonia, but that's not unexpected for a ventilator patient. She's still "breathing over" the ventilator - i.e. she's setting the pace now, instead of letting the machine do it. They're talking about reducing the sedation even more, and reducing the blood pressure medications, since she's doing so well in that area too. It seems like so much good news in a 24 hour period, I can hardly stand it! :D

Hallelujah!

Yet another magical report! Mikele related so much information so quickly (I think she was excited - duh!), that I'm sure I missed a lot. The gist of it, was that Dorothy passed some more big milestones, at least from Mikele's perspective.

This just in, from Mikele:
First of all, at 4 p.m., the nurse let me stay for Dorothy's regular evaluation, which she had never done before. She said "I'm going to let you watch her "dance". Meaning that the nurse expected that Dorothy would be randomly moving her arms and legs. Surprise! Dorothy opened her eyes, and when I talked to her, she worked really hard to find my voice. I said "Hi, wiggleworm" and she started to move her arms and legs! Then I said, "No, honey, we want you to rest" and she stopped! Then the nurse had to put an ice pack under her left arm because she's running a tiny fever, and she reached over with her right hand VERY purposefully, and tried to reach RIGHT where the ice pack was. I took that hand and told her no, we had to bring her fever down, but of course she didn't stop trying until ... the nurse said, it's okay she's had some tylenol we'll see how she does with that. THEN she laid her hand back down!!! Then I talked to her about where she was, and the nurse talked to her, and the nurse noticed she's trying to breathe over the respirator. I talked her into calming down, and letting the respirator help her heal, and then told her to go to sleep, which she did.

Then at 7 p.m....Tam had driven Bob to the hospital, so he could take over the night shift. Bob and Tam were in the room, and I had stepped out for a second - they were talking, and when I looked back, Dorothy's eyes were WIDE open. I ran to her side and grabbed her hand and said "Hi honey!" and she SQUEEZED my hand. Hard! Then her eyebrows went up to the sky, causing a very furrowed brow, like "What the heck???" I reassured her that she was in a safe place, and being taken care of. Dorothy started trying to breathe on her own, fighting with the ventilator again, and I encouraged her to relax, and let the ventilator do its work to help her heal, and Dorothy eventually stopped fighting the ventilator.

And that's not all! Bob started talking about her kitten Mika, and she SMILED!!! Around all those tubes and everything, she smiled. I ran out of the room to get the nurse. She was as excited as I was. The nurse said "Dorey, can you raise two fingers?" and Dorothy did nothing. I said "She doesn't like to be called Dorey" and the nurse said, "Oh, right. DOROT, CAN YOU RAISE TWO FINGERS?", and she raised her hand! Then she told her again, to raise two fingers, and she made a fist. So while she knows that she was supposed to do something with her hand, she wasn't quite wide awake enough to really understand. But MAN, not BAD for the first day!! It was clear she was hearing all of our voices, and she was trying to tell us how confusing it is inside her head. We just keep telling her not to worry, she's going to recover.

So everyone who is praying... keep it up! We have a long way to go with this. We know there's no guarantee that anything in particular will happen next, but these all seem like very clear signs that our Dorothy is inside there, and wanting to come out. A very magical day indeed. Bob probably has a very interesting night ahead of him!

Pic from 2006.

Wednesday's Magical News

Mikele called after lunch, to say she had some magical news. Dorothy hadn't moved all day. Then after lunch, Bob got up to leave, leaned over, and whispered, "Goodbye Dorothy, this is Dad, I'll see you later. I'll be back tonight." Dorothy stretched - moved her arms and legs a little bit - moved her head, and relaxed. OK, I'll admit that just brought tears to my eyes, as it did to Mikele and Bob when it happened.

Wednesday Morning

Day 6. Dorothy had a reasonably quiet night last night. No major crises.

Mikele says she went into the cupboard to get something, ran across the chocolate pudding (something Dorothy likes a lot), and had a little meltdown. Rather than going completely nuts, she called out to her big Sister, who's in town to help: "Tam... Hide the chocolate pudding!" and that helped a lot.

These first four days are the really critical ones for a coma patient.
Dorothy has met all the important milestones during this period.
So again, now it's sort of just a waiting game, to see how she does.

Tuesday Night

One last comment from Mikele tonight: I was just reminded of something that happened when I talked to Tam just now. Dorothy's nurses have all of these little goals for her - being able to tolerate being turned over without too much change in her pressures, things like that. One of her goals was met today. They needed to be able to feed her a certain amount through her tube, and have her stomach digest it properly. So when Terrie (today's nurse) told me that Dorothy made goal, I told her that this might be the first time in 10 years that she actually ate everything someone wanted her to eat!

Someone asked about favorite flowers -- thank you so much for the thought, but please, no flowers yet, they're not allowed in the ICU. But cards are always welcome!

Tuesday Evening

Mikele just checked in with the results of the CAT scan. She said they saw no evidence of bleeding under the brain, no severe hematomas, no brain shear, no brain stem involvement. So the current diagnosis is "acute brain injury". Now it's a waiting game, until the swelling goes down, before they can let her wake her up. The medications are doing well at keeping her brain pressure down. Once they can keep her brain pressure down without drugs, they can try to wake her up. Pic from 2006.

Tuesday Afternoon

The CAT scan technician told Mikele this afternoon, that this is the first time she's seen a *coma* patient wriggle out of the CAT scan machine!

Tuesday Noon

Day 5. Mikele says Dorothy is doing well enough today, that they're taking her down for a CAT scan. I guess that means her vital signs are more stable than they've been. They're also installing a PICC line, to give her arms a break from the I.V. sites. No changes to medications today. Her body seems to be regulating its own temperature and doesn't need the heating and cooling blankets today. Today is "quiet day", so there's no talking allowed in her ICU room. Talking and other stimulation can trigger a brainstorm of activity that reduces brain healing. So Mikele gets to sit out in the visitor room, and then check in on her periodically.

Monday Evening Later

Mikele called to add some new information. In all her stirrings, Dorothy has been avoiding moving her left arm, and there's been some concern that it may be paralyzed. Her tongue has also been quite swollen and damaged where she bit it. Mikele asked a doctor to look at it again, and he decided to do some minor surgery to improve the tongue. Even though they used Lidocaine to numb it, Dorothy got very agitated that they were messing with her tongue, and started flailing at their arms to stop them. Not only did this kid in a coma move in reaction to stimuli, but she used both arms! That's when someone commented that she had a broken clavicle, which was news to Mikele. So it's possible that she hadn't been moving her left arm, because of the pain from the broken collarbone - and having had it happen to me this Summer, I can tell you it hurts a lot! This feels like a really wonderful development! Pic from 2007.

Monday Evening

Day 3. Mikele says things are about the same. They've been taking Dorothy off the coma-inducing sedative for a few minutes every morning, to check for signs that her brain wants to wake up, but have seen no signs yet. The doc says that with brain patients, there is often a lack of thermal control by the hypothalamus, which explains why she's been going through some major temperature swings. They're managing her temperature with special blankets for cooling and heating.

The kind and thoughtful people who have visited with Bob and Mikele have been very helpful and encouraging. Bob and Mikele really appreciate the opportunity to take a few minutes away from the ICU for a short visit.

When looking out the only window in the ICU waiting room, a visitor can see only one building - the apartment where Tyler lives. His apartment window is visible from there. Mikele says, "How cool is that?" Tyler has been making regular visits - strangely it's always at lunchtime.

Bob and Mikele covet your prayers, especially for the next 24 hours, because this time period is especially crucial for Dorothy.

Renamed/Moved Blog

Mikele has heard back that some people are having trouble with the faristerra blog name, so I've created this new blog, and copied all the existing posts and comments over here. Hope this helps! Thank you everyone for commenting, and feel free to continue to add comments on this new blog!

Sunday Night Late

Dorothy's still unconscious. When they reduced her meds this morning, she was being very active. Both sides of her body are moving independently and well. She even reached up with her right hand and tried to pull on the respirator - which shows cognitive awareness. We continue to see only positive progress. Her vital signs are strong, and her nurses are just wonderful.

Mikele says: We are so grateful for the Atascadero Fire, Police and Paramedics who saved Dorothy's life. Now we're fighting for her future. She wouldn't have had one without them.

Sunday Evening

Mikele asked me to create this blog, which I've backfilled with information from the past two days. She says things are going as expected - Dorothy is holding her own, which is the best news possible so far.

Sunday Morning

This is Day 2 for Dorothy. They're expecting some symptoms to be worse today. As Bob said, it's like the 2nd day after heavy exercise, when the soreness and stiffness set in. She's still in ICU. Still unconscious. Some fever. They saw an (expected) increase in intra-cranial pressure, but it's responding to treatment. They've put her back on the sedative, to keep her brain from hurting itself at this point. The medical folks are optimistic about her youth and its ability to overcome many hurdles.

A friend of the family stopped by the hospital, and related a very positive story about his son, who suffered through a similar experience, even worse than Dorothy. He was oxygen deprived for 15 minutes, and in a coma for three weeks, and still recovered very well, graduating with his class, and going on to college. It's heartening to know there's a possibility that things could come out all right for her. Mikele says her general sense is that Dorothy's doing about as well as she can be, for her situation, and she's allowing herself to hope again.

Saturday Morning

Dorothy was moved to Sierra Vista hospital at around 2am this morning. Her vital signs are OK. They're concerned about pressure on her brain, and have created a port to measure the intra-cranial pressure. They've taken her off the coma inducing sedative, and are now waiting and hoping that she will regain consciousness. She's very reactive (her vital signs change) to people in the room with her, and physically reactive to people poking and prodding her, which they're doing quite a lot, as part of the monitoring process. The fact that she's reacting seems like a good thing.

Dorothy to ER

Our niece Dorothy went into the E.R. at Twin Cities Hospital in Templeton Friday night 1/18, after a serious car accident. She was a passenger in the back of her friend's mother's Jetta. They had just left, on their way to a friend's house, when they were rear-ended by a very fast moving truck at Highway 41 and El Camino Real. The mother and daughter in the front seat got out OK. Dorothy had bitten her lip badly and was bleeding a lot, and was pinned in back for some time, until they were able to use the jaws of life to free her. She was blue when they took her out, which means she was oxygen deprived for some time, and there's a risk of brain damage. She's in a medically induced coma, to protect the brain from swelling and pressure. They'll be transporting her tonight to Sierra Vista Hospital in San Luis Obispo, where they can provide better neurological care for this particular injury. One good thing is that her brother Tyler lives in San Luis, and may be able to visit with her, between his classes at Cal Poly. Mikele said this morning that D reacted physically when they did a procedure to allow them to measure the pressure on her brain, and her heartbeat goes up when they're in the room and talking to her. These seem like good signs that her brain is active in some way. That's all I know right now. I don't know what any of us can do to help, from so far away, except pray for her recovery.