Wednesday Night

Back at Loma Linda. Denise has taken off to get some sleep.

Took three tries to get here this evening. First try I got to the end of the block before I realized I was supposed to bring some recent photos of Jake for the surgeons. I guess all that money we spent on senior portraits will turn out to be a better investment than we could have known.

Second try, I got as far as the 60/215 freeway, about 15 minutes from the hospital, when I got a call from Jake letting me know that the doctors wanted the mold of his bite taken after his braces were removed and his retainer, to help with the reconstruction of his face. So, I turned around and headed back to Temecula.

Third try was the charm, but by that time I didn't arrive until about 7:00PM, meaning that Denise put in about a 15 hour shift today.

Jake is doing very well today. When I received his phone call he sounded almost completely like his old self. He was up and out for a couple pretty long walks today. His vision and balance are a little questionable, so he needs a spotter and someone to push his IV rack along behind him. He's been eating a little more, mixing in some pudding, sherbet, Boost, and I don't know what all else. He did say that he found the pureed pears kind of disgusting. I don't think he liked the presentation; everything on the tray was some shade of beige.

He saw the speech and physical therapists again today and also had a long talk with the psychologist. Not surprisingly, he has some anxiety about the upcoming surgery and he was able to talk through some of those. Denise said that the psychologist is off tomorrow, but promised she'd call Jake again before his surgery.

The plan is for surgery around 10:30AM, but that's subject to change depending on what sort of other delays or emergencies might happen. Once they're ready to take him to surgery they'll give him something to quell any anxiety and then it will be off to the OR. Denise and I will be given pagers so they can contact us when the surgery is done.

Jake was seen by the opthamologist again yesterday. His double-vision has not decreased as the swelling has gone down, so there is potentially some damage to the muscles around his left eye, preventing it from aligning properly with the right. Jake has been booked for a checkup with the eye docs in late July. At that time they'll determine whether he'll need additional surgery to re-attach/-align his muscles to correct the vision problem.

In the meantime, the doctor recommended wearing a patch on one eye so that he can see without the double-vision. Here's a scary little piece of information though; the doctor cautioned to be sure to switch eyes on a regular basis, giving equal time to each eye. Apparently, if you stop using one eye for a lengthy period your brain will eventually just ignore that eye and you will never get the vision in that eye back again. So, we're setting countdown timers on all our cell phones to track this stuff to the minute.

I think that is just about all the news that's fit to print.

This may be my last posting until post-op. On the other hand, I may end up posting constantly, just to keep my mind occupied until he's out of surgery and back in recovery.

It just occurred to me that I never had dinner. I wonder if the cafeteria is still open?