Friday, June 20, 2008
It's been a long time since we last updated this. Kelsi's eyes required surgery to correct the double vision. She is going to school full time in the fall, got her learners permit and, though not completely her old self, is doing very well. Since the surgery she can see well enough to run. She is now trying to get back in shape. She still has some coordination problems. That may take a long time to correct, but she is making good progress. She is at a point now, that if you didn't know her before the fall, you wouldn't notice anything different. She had all A's in school and is able to cope with high school at her grade level. Most of her hair has grown back and the scar has changed to a fairly thin smooth light-colored line.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wednesday November 28, 2007
In my wildest dreams I would never have imagined that I would be writing what I will write today. I thought Kelsi would eventually get there. I know Kelsi was blessed to make a complete recovery and much faith and prayer has gone into making this happen, but I keep thinking it's been extremely fast. It can't already be so close to done. Complete healing of the brain is supposed to take much longer. I am not the only one saying this. We just returned from our meeting with Dr. Jensen at the Univerity Hospital Neurology clinic. He reviewed the most recent CAT scans of Kelsi's brain and indicated that it shows no sign of any remaining damange to Kelsi's brain. The way he put it: "Her brain has completely healed". The rate at which Kelsi recovered is a surprise even to the experts. She has been off any medication for 3 weeks. She is cleared to do any normal activities, including drivers education. That one makes me nervous because I have already driven with my first 5 kids while they learned. That is nerve racking under any circumstances.
She still gets tired quicker than she normally did, but even that isn't far from where it was. Her eyes still have some small alignment problems. The doctors will give that more time since it still seems to be improving. The problem with her eyes can be corrected through surgery, but why do that if the problem will completely heal in a matter of months.
Kelsi is attending school part time now and she takes all but one of the remaining classes through home schooling. The school tested her learning level and indicated that she is learning at the 10th grade level - just where she is supposed to be. In January she is expected to return to school full time. She will have some make-up work to do to get full credit for her sophomore year, but that should all be completed before she starts her junior year.
If you met Kelsi today, unless you knew her before, you would find it pretty hard to tell that she suffered a recent brain injury. She is functioning almost at 100%. She even cried with real tears for the first time since the accident. The things that will still continue to improve over the next months are: body coordination, balance, stamina, eye coordination and fatigue.
Our family has witnessed a great miracle. The power of God has been manifested to us through this. So many peoples faith and prayers contributed to this. We thank you all.
She still gets tired quicker than she normally did, but even that isn't far from where it was. Her eyes still have some small alignment problems. The doctors will give that more time since it still seems to be improving. The problem with her eyes can be corrected through surgery, but why do that if the problem will completely heal in a matter of months.
Kelsi is attending school part time now and she takes all but one of the remaining classes through home schooling. The school tested her learning level and indicated that she is learning at the 10th grade level - just where she is supposed to be. In January she is expected to return to school full time. She will have some make-up work to do to get full credit for her sophomore year, but that should all be completed before she starts her junior year.
If you met Kelsi today, unless you knew her before, you would find it pretty hard to tell that she suffered a recent brain injury. She is functioning almost at 100%. She even cried with real tears for the first time since the accident. The things that will still continue to improve over the next months are: body coordination, balance, stamina, eye coordination and fatigue.
Our family has witnessed a great miracle. The power of God has been manifested to us through this. So many peoples faith and prayers contributed to this. We thank you all.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Tuesday October 23, 2007
It has been some time since any entries have been made. When Kelsi first started to come out of her coma, huge changes happened every day. Now the changes are occurring much more slowly. In the last posting, 6 areas of incomplete recovery were listed. All of those areas have improved measurably:
1) The double vision is pretty much entirely healed. When Kelsi is very tired she still has some difficultly with vision, but she no longer calls it double vision. It is more of a blurred or tired vision that we all experience when very tired.
2) Small motor skills. Writing and walking are still the best measures of the small motor skills. When the last update was made, Kelsi was barely able to write anything that could be read. When she did write, it was limited to a few words. After that she was too tired to go on. Kelsi's father had an interesting answer to prayer a few weeks ago. He asked if he could be allowed to know how completely her handwriting would be healed over time. Seconds before waking he had a dream in which he saw Kelsi writing as he watched from behind. Her writing speed appeared to be as fast as anything she had ever done before. He was also able to see the quality of the writing where he noted that it was very good. He looked at samples of her handwriting from her journal and found that the quality and style of the writing in the dream was comparable to the journal entries written prior to the fall. That dream was several weeks ago. Since that time her writing has improved to nearly match her writing before the fall and the style matches her old handwriting. The quality is not quite as good. The small motor skills still need some more development, but they are getting close to where they used to be.
3) Muscles: Compared to the amount of exercise she gets, Kelsi's strength is progressing at the rate one would expect for the amount of degradation that occurred. Her physical recovery doesn't seem to be directly limited by brain control. Her exercise is limited more by fatigue. See the next item.
4) Tired: Kelsi seems to feel tired all day every day. She is awake nearly as many hours as she was before the fall, but she tires quickly whenever she tries to do physical or mental exercises. She is constantly improving, but this seems to be the area of slowest recovery and affects everything else she does.
5) Missing data: Still no notable loss of memory for things she knew before the fall. This is not likely to be a problem.
6) School: Kelsi is attending seminary at school and at home. Difficulties with scheduling have not allowed her to be able to do much home schooling through the high school. The teacher who is supposed to do the home schooling has had difficulties with her mother recovering from a heart attack. So far there has been only one visit and it was too late at night for Kelsi to do much.
Last fast Sunday Kelsi surprised us all as she stood and bore her testimony. She thanked everyone who has fasted and prayed for her and she bore her testimony of the healing she has experienced and of other gospel principles. It was a very emotional time for those who were in attendance.
Please feel free to comment on these postings if they are of value to you. As always, we thank you for your faith and prayers for Kelsi and other in need.
1) The double vision is pretty much entirely healed. When Kelsi is very tired she still has some difficultly with vision, but she no longer calls it double vision. It is more of a blurred or tired vision that we all experience when very tired.
2) Small motor skills. Writing and walking are still the best measures of the small motor skills. When the last update was made, Kelsi was barely able to write anything that could be read. When she did write, it was limited to a few words. After that she was too tired to go on. Kelsi's father had an interesting answer to prayer a few weeks ago. He asked if he could be allowed to know how completely her handwriting would be healed over time. Seconds before waking he had a dream in which he saw Kelsi writing as he watched from behind. Her writing speed appeared to be as fast as anything she had ever done before. He was also able to see the quality of the writing where he noted that it was very good. He looked at samples of her handwriting from her journal and found that the quality and style of the writing in the dream was comparable to the journal entries written prior to the fall. That dream was several weeks ago. Since that time her writing has improved to nearly match her writing before the fall and the style matches her old handwriting. The quality is not quite as good. The small motor skills still need some more development, but they are getting close to where they used to be.
3) Muscles: Compared to the amount of exercise she gets, Kelsi's strength is progressing at the rate one would expect for the amount of degradation that occurred. Her physical recovery doesn't seem to be directly limited by brain control. Her exercise is limited more by fatigue. See the next item.
4) Tired: Kelsi seems to feel tired all day every day. She is awake nearly as many hours as she was before the fall, but she tires quickly whenever she tries to do physical or mental exercises. She is constantly improving, but this seems to be the area of slowest recovery and affects everything else she does.
5) Missing data: Still no notable loss of memory for things she knew before the fall. This is not likely to be a problem.
6) School: Kelsi is attending seminary at school and at home. Difficulties with scheduling have not allowed her to be able to do much home schooling through the high school. The teacher who is supposed to do the home schooling has had difficulties with her mother recovering from a heart attack. So far there has been only one visit and it was too late at night for Kelsi to do much.
Last fast Sunday Kelsi surprised us all as she stood and bore her testimony. She thanked everyone who has fasted and prayed for her and she bore her testimony of the healing she has experienced and of other gospel principles. It was a very emotional time for those who were in attendance.
Please feel free to comment on these postings if they are of value to you. As always, we thank you for your faith and prayers for Kelsi and other in need.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday September 30, 2007
It has been a whole week since the last posting. Progress has been great. Each day Kelsi progresses toward resuming where she left off before the accident.
The last posting listed 6 areas where recovery was incomplete. Progress has been made in all areas:
1) Double Vision: Last week Kelsi had double vision nearly all day everyday. Now she is seeing normal each day and for increasing amounts of time. We expect that this problem will be completely gone in just a few weeks except possibly when she gets excessively tired.
2) Small motor skills: Kelsi's writing and walking both continue to improve. We expect it will be many months before the recovery is complete.
3) Muscles: Yesterday Kelsi walked for 15 minutes in 5 sets of 3 minutes on the elliptical. This is an improvement of her previous best of about 12 minutes. She also had a chance to lift weights this week. Full recovery will take many months.
4) Tired: Kelsi's days are now getting to be 12~14 hours of time awake with much of that time still being very tired. Again months to recover.
5) Missing data: There are no known large missing memories. Much of the small stuff that seemed to be missing now seems to have been due more to fatigue. This area may already be okay and just waiting for the "tired" to go away.
6) School: Kelsi will start with home-bound schooling where she will receive the same assignments as her class at school, but only start out with 2 classes: math and English. She will be graded pass/fail until she can compete at her grade level, then she will change back to letter grades. The school will work with Kelsi to help her to catch up with the time that is lost in an attempt to allow her to catch up with her classmates over time. The current goal is to have Kelsi attend 1 to 2 classes at school starting in about 6 weeks.
We strongly believe that as you continue to pray with us for Kelsi, she will continue to make progress at an accelerated rate. We thank you for yours faith and prayers.
The last posting listed 6 areas where recovery was incomplete. Progress has been made in all areas:
1) Double Vision: Last week Kelsi had double vision nearly all day everyday. Now she is seeing normal each day and for increasing amounts of time. We expect that this problem will be completely gone in just a few weeks except possibly when she gets excessively tired.
2) Small motor skills: Kelsi's writing and walking both continue to improve. We expect it will be many months before the recovery is complete.
3) Muscles: Yesterday Kelsi walked for 15 minutes in 5 sets of 3 minutes on the elliptical. This is an improvement of her previous best of about 12 minutes. She also had a chance to lift weights this week. Full recovery will take many months.
4) Tired: Kelsi's days are now getting to be 12~14 hours of time awake with much of that time still being very tired. Again months to recover.
5) Missing data: There are no known large missing memories. Much of the small stuff that seemed to be missing now seems to have been due more to fatigue. This area may already be okay and just waiting for the "tired" to go away.
6) School: Kelsi will start with home-bound schooling where she will receive the same assignments as her class at school, but only start out with 2 classes: math and English. She will be graded pass/fail until she can compete at her grade level, then she will change back to letter grades. The school will work with Kelsi to help her to catch up with the time that is lost in an attempt to allow her to catch up with her classmates over time. The current goal is to have Kelsi attend 1 to 2 classes at school starting in about 6 weeks.
We strongly believe that as you continue to pray with us for Kelsi, she will continue to make progress at an accelerated rate. We thank you for yours faith and prayers.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Saturday September 22, 2007
Kelsi completed her first full 24 hour day at home yesterday. She is very happy to be back with family and friends and even happier to be out of the limited world of living in a hospital room. She went to her sister's track meet, celebrated her youngest brother's birthday, visited with friends that dropped by, played some games and did some therapeutic exercises designed to overcome the challenges she still faces.
Kelsi's parents have discussed the continuation of daily updates to this blog and have determined that trying to keep daily updates of her progress is not really useful or practical since the remaining recovery will take months. Updates will be done as significant events occur or milestones are met, rather than on a daily basis. In general, the following is a summary of what needs to happen before Kelsi has completely recovered:
1) Double Vision must go away. This already goes away at times. This affects her walking, reading and generally anything else that you use your eyes for. The doctor indicated that this problem should go away on its own, but that it could be surgically repaired if is doesn't.
2) Small motor skills must be refined. This affects her walking, writing and anything that takes small muscle movements. This has rapidly improved and should continue to do so.
3) Muscles must get stronger. Living in a hospital room for 51 days causes the muscles to become weak. It will take weeks or months for them to return to full strength.
4) Kelsi's days will become longer. Right now her brain requires more sleep to continue to recover. She will gradually recover to the point that she needs the same amount of sleep as everyone else. Until then, when she gets tired, she will need to take a nap.
5) Kelsi must relearn some of the things that were forgotten as a result of the brain injury. These don't appear to be big blocks of data, just small things that are observed as she goes about her regular day.
6) Kelsi will be integrated back into the school system. This will not happen all at once. She will start out slowly and build up until she is attending the regular school day.
Kelsi's story is like a really good book. A tragedy happened, conflicts occurred and the the good guys won. Unlike fiction, the real live miracle happened and it doesn't just end with "and they all lived happily ever after".
This blog was started to help all who have fasted and prayed for Kelsi to have a place to track her progress and to share in the miracle of her recovery. Where Kelsi is home and can meet with those closest to her, this blog is probably not as useful as it was when she was in the hospital. Those who are more distant, who are following her progress, praying for her and are interested in the progress of the milestones listed above, are invited to comment on this blog so that we know how useful it is and can determine how best to proceed.
Thanks again for your prayers of faith.
Kelsi's parents have discussed the continuation of daily updates to this blog and have determined that trying to keep daily updates of her progress is not really useful or practical since the remaining recovery will take months. Updates will be done as significant events occur or milestones are met, rather than on a daily basis. In general, the following is a summary of what needs to happen before Kelsi has completely recovered:
1) Double Vision must go away. This already goes away at times. This affects her walking, reading and generally anything else that you use your eyes for. The doctor indicated that this problem should go away on its own, but that it could be surgically repaired if is doesn't.
2) Small motor skills must be refined. This affects her walking, writing and anything that takes small muscle movements. This has rapidly improved and should continue to do so.
3) Muscles must get stronger. Living in a hospital room for 51 days causes the muscles to become weak. It will take weeks or months for them to return to full strength.
4) Kelsi's days will become longer. Right now her brain requires more sleep to continue to recover. She will gradually recover to the point that she needs the same amount of sleep as everyone else. Until then, when she gets tired, she will need to take a nap.
5) Kelsi must relearn some of the things that were forgotten as a result of the brain injury. These don't appear to be big blocks of data, just small things that are observed as she goes about her regular day.
6) Kelsi will be integrated back into the school system. This will not happen all at once. She will start out slowly and build up until she is attending the regular school day.
Kelsi's story is like a really good book. A tragedy happened, conflicts occurred and the the good guys won. Unlike fiction, the real live miracle happened and it doesn't just end with "and they all lived happily ever after".
This blog was started to help all who have fasted and prayed for Kelsi to have a place to track her progress and to share in the miracle of her recovery. Where Kelsi is home and can meet with those closest to her, this blog is probably not as useful as it was when she was in the hospital. Those who are more distant, who are following her progress, praying for her and are interested in the progress of the milestones listed above, are invited to comment on this blog so that we know how useful it is and can determine how best to proceed.
Thanks again for your prayers of faith.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Thursday September 20, 2007
This evening Kelsi wanted to go on a walk with her Dad. Dad asked her if she wanted to go outside. She did. As they walked toward the setting sun, Kelsi found the light extremely bright for her still dialated eyes. She closed her eyes as she walked and said, "Dad, you need to pretend you are walking with a blind person." Dad guided her past any troublespots as they walked completely around the west side of the hospital as well as through the Moran Eye Center, an adjacent hospital. The walk was long and they had to stop, sit and rest periodically. Kelsi became aware of how weak her legs felt after laying on her back in bed for most of the past 7 weeks. Physical therapy has done a great deal of help, but to get all of her strength back will take much more time and effort. She commented a couple of times on how she walks funny. She also commented that her voice sounds funny too. Dad told her that the fact that she can hear and feel the differences from her past abilities are helping her brain to restore them. Kelsi called her Mom a couple times just to be sure she got home safe. The concern she has always shown for others has returned. Dad was able to explain to Kelsi that prior to her accident she was a very righteous and faithful person and that our Heavenly Father has blessed her faithfulness by quickly healing her. Conversations with Kelsi have been very close to the conversations of the past as a big part of her ability to understand is now returning. Throughout the day Kelsi has wanted to know all of the details about what those who were surrounding her did as they waited for Life Flight.
Tomorrow evening Kelsi will come home. Those who know her will note many things that still need a lot of time to get better. She will be very tired. The time that people can visit her will need to be limited so she continues to get the rest she needs. It will be some time before she can attend school, but she will slowly be able to get back. No one who hasn't had a similar experience can fully understand the level of effort Kelsi has put out to get better. Anyone who really knows Kelsi, knows how hard she will continue to work to fully recover. All who have faithfully fasted and prayed for Kelsi should be able to see the hand of the Lord in healing her. Many have prayed for Kelsi. We thank you for that. Please continue your prayers as she re-enters the real world.
Tomorrow evening Kelsi will come home. Those who know her will note many things that still need a lot of time to get better. She will be very tired. The time that people can visit her will need to be limited so she continues to get the rest she needs. It will be some time before she can attend school, but she will slowly be able to get back. No one who hasn't had a similar experience can fully understand the level of effort Kelsi has put out to get better. Anyone who really knows Kelsi, knows how hard she will continue to work to fully recover. All who have faithfully fasted and prayed for Kelsi should be able to see the hand of the Lord in healing her. Many have prayed for Kelsi. We thank you for that. Please continue your prayers as she re-enters the real world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)