January 2, 2010 - 1 Year Today

It's hard for me to fathom it's been one year since the day that changed Jerry's and all of our lives, forever. What a year it's been full of emotional highs and lows, great strides toward recovery, much progress and some set backs. We are treating today like any other day, it doesn't have to be a negative reminder of a tragic accident, it is what we make it. But if I'm being honest I feel a little sad that Jerry hasn't regained more mobility. We knew the first year would be crucial and the most mobility he would regain would be in the first year. So I am sad that we have reached the 1 year mark and Jerry isn't as far along as we had hoped. That being said there is so much to be grateful for and just because we've reached the one year mark we have not given up hope, this is NOT as good as it gets. God has blessed us in so many ways, we continue to pray that He will deliver Jerry and restore him to health. Matthew 19:26 "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." The summer staff kids came to visit from Fresno and other places and spent the afternoon and evening with Jerry. He enjoyed seeing them and hanging out and it was a wonderful distraction.

December was very busy preparing for Christmas, continuing therapy and Dennis still working on the house. Jerry enjoyed doing all his shopping online and would get excited when one of his packages would arrive. Jerry wasn't sure who was supposed to get which package and didn't want anyone opening them before Christmas so as not to spoil the surprise. So he made up a game for Christmas morning, each person would grab one of the packages from him then we all opened them at the same time. We then had to decide if the gift we opened belonged to us or someone else. We would exchange the gift with the family member we believed had our gift and Jerry would say how many were right. The exchanging went on until we each had the gift Jerry intended for us, it was something new and fun. Christmas eve we normally drive around and deliver homemade cookies to all of our friends, it's been our tradition for years. It was a little harder this year particularly for Jerry, every pot hole and bump in the road causes him to bounce in his chair and can be very uncomfortable. Not to mention all six of us don't fit in the van as well as we fit in the Suburban. However we pulled it off delivering about 27 cookie packages and even made it to the evening church service. It was good! Sorry Trish we didn't make it up to Bonny Doon :-( next year we'll get an earlier start and one way or another your gettin cookies.

Jerry has enjoyed having his friends home from college he's gone to a party and the movies. The boys also came to the house twice for a LAN party, they network all their computers together and play video games until 2:00 am. It's so great for him to get together with his friends and just be one of the guys again. He loves to have them home but it's hard on him when they go back to school, partly because he misses hanging out with them and partly sad because he's not headed back to school.

Speaking of computers we learned another lesson the hard way. Jerry has a fan that his laptop sits on top of that sucks the heat and blows it out the side. Jerry wanted to put his lap top on his lap so I set it on top of a pillow on his lap. I didn't think there would be a heating problem because the fan lifts the laptop up about 2 inches so air can circulate underneath. Unfortunately Jerry's hand was next to the hot air exhaust blowing out the side. His hand was slowly burning for about 2 hours and he couldn't feel it. The doctor indicated it was second to third degree burns on the V between the thumb and first finger, he had some pretty nasty blisters, they are finally starting to heal.

New years eve was a blast, we had some friends over and played a game and hung out. Unfortunately Josh and Janea were not with us because they had previous plans. It was a last minute party at our house, we were invited to Kris and Nana's party but we were not able to make it so they brought the party to us. Thanks guys! Jessica and Mitch made a balloon drop in the living room with confetti and balloons and decorated for the party. We played a game called "the game of things" ....it was so much fun a must have party game. We were so loud at midnight we could have woke the dead.

Dennis has finished the tile in the bathroom/shower room, he did the last of the grout today. I'm so excited all we have to do now is wait 3 days to seal the grout, then put in the jacuzzi tub and fixtures and a little pluming. We should be able to get Jerry in the tub in about a week. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Dennis has worked so hard the last 10 months, he deserves a nice long vacation when he's done. When it's all done and cleaned up I'll post pictures.

Well I started this post at 11:00 this morning and have left and come back to it a few times through out the day. It's now 2:00 am and I'm on duty at 4:30 am so time for me to get some shut eye. Thank you all for caring, for the prayers, support and love.

Good night,
Katie