The Lawrence family visits Josh... That's Josh's buddy, Kyle, on the right. He called 911 on that infamous morning.
Josh is happy to be home after spending over five months in hospitals. He has no recollection of those five months due to post-traumatic stress amnesia....but I suppose that's a good thing. Who wants to remember being on live support and fighting for your life?
The first thing Josh did when he walked into the house was say, "Wow, this looks just like our house..." I said, "Josh, look around...that's a picture of us on the wall." He then says, "Wow, this IS our house." How brilliant is that!
We're getting into the routine of being an outpatient at Sharp Rehab. He has about fifteen hours of out-patient therapy per week. It takes a long time to get it together to go out the door and be on time. It's S L O W. To make a 9 a.m. appointment, we have to get up at 7 a.m. We have to get Josh out of bed, on his feet, to the bathroom, to the kitchen table for breakfast, back to the bathroom, into the bedroom to get dressed, then down the stairs and into the car..... I sleep on an air mattress in Josh's room so I can help him get up in the middle of the morning to use the bathroom and also to keep a watch so he doesn't fall. He has already fallen twice on the watch of a clueless caregiver. Caring for Josh is MAJOR. I feel old and tired...
Elsie is the best nurse and caregiver anyone could ask for. However, she can't work 24/7 with no breaks. She sleeps on an air mattress in the family room, close by. She is extremely efficient and helpful. She took a few days off and we had this clueless caregiver that claimed she was a nurse with experience in brain injuries. We soon learned that this was all untrue. She was pathetic. I was wondering why she would just kind of stand by and let me do everything. One morning we were on our way to therapy and I noticed Josh's knuckles were bleeding on both hands. I knew he had fallen. I confronted her and she says he slipped when they were walking down the stairs. She also said, "He pushed me and I am more injured than he is." Josh was holding his shoulder and I looked under his shirt and noticed that it, too, was bruised and bleeding. I was livid! We arrived at Sharp Rehab and I had the occupational therapist check him out thoroughly. She said he was just a bit swollen, but nothing was broken.
Later on that evening, I went out with some friends and Natalie was home doing her homework at the kitchen table. Natalie calls me and says, "Mom, Josh wants to use the bathroom and the caregiver is asleep on the couch...." So, needless to say we got rid of that gal. Elsie is back and we're thankful! I think the plan is to have Elsie 4 days and another gal named Celeste three days. We'll see how everything works out.
I am looking into other options for Josh such as a place called Learning Services in Escondido which is a more structured environment specializing in integrating brain injured patients back into society. However, that place was pretty low level. I checked it out and it was so overwhelmingly sad.... There is another place called the Howard House which I will check out. Josh has only been home less than 2 weeks, so we have to wait things out and see how he does. It is just so much work, even with a full time nurse!
I can't wait until Josh starts speech therapy. He needs it so badly. He slurs all his words together and talks so fast. It is very difficult to understand him. Yesterday when I got home, Elsie said Josh answered the phone which was a first! I looked at the caller id and noticed that Joyce had called. Of course, Josh has no recollection of the conversation, but Elsie said they talked for about 5 minutes! That's a start...but I am sure Joyce had no idea what he was saying. I can understand him because I am with him so much. Hopefully with time and therapy his speech will improve. He reads well and understands.
Auntie Helen, Uncle Mark and Carrie are coming to visit. That will be fun. Josh and Natalie will really enjoy that. You guys are definitely staying in our house. Uncle Mark and Auntie Helen can sleep in the master bedroom since I sleep on the air mattress in Josh's room which believe it or not is comfortable. Carrie will sleep upstairs in the guest room. So that's settled. Also Gina Davis is having a fundraiser at the Four Seasons Aviara so I got us tickets to that event. It's called See Jane and it's always a blast. They'll be comedians there and you'll get to meet Gina Davis. She is quite cool!
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