"A terrible inconvenience" - Friday, June 12, 11:55PM

I'm back on night shift and Denise is home catching up on her sleep.

Nick spent the day with Jacob so that Denise and I could attend Jake's graduation ceremony at CHS. More about that later.

Jake is sleeping peacefully at the moment. Shortly after Denise and Nick had left he said "This is a terrible inconvenience" and if that doesn't display a gift for understatement, I don't know what does.

It has been a long day...

I spent last night in a chair next to Jake's bed. Sometime in the middle of the night, one of the male nurses was kind enough to roll a recliner. He said he'd spent night in hospitals with his own children and knew what it was like. That was really nice as I was able to get a couple hours sleep.

There was not much change in Jake's condition by this morning, but there was a lot of progress throughout the day today.

The nurses gave him ice packs for his face overnight, which brought the swelling around his eyes down quite a bit.

There has been a parade of specialists through his room at all hours, so I'm starting to lose track of who said what when.

The trauma surgeons from the ER were the admitting team, so I guess they have primary responsibility. There was quite a bit of concern about Jake's spine because of the CT scan at Inland Valley that supposedly showed fractures on several vertebrae. Jake had no apparent nerve damage, but they weren't taking any chances and have kept him flat on his back in a C-collar the entire time.

This afternoon Jake was given an MRI and they determined that the damage that was spotted on the CT scan was either part of an old injury or possibly early disc disease, but not a result of this accident. So, they have relaxed his spine control; he can sit up a little and roll himself onto his side to try to make himself more comfortable. They are still keeping the collar on, I think primarily to stabilize his face and reduce any pain he might get from turning his head.

The have also placed him on a morphine pump, so he can control his own pain medication. The morphine seems to be controlling the pain pretty well.

He's still not allowed to take anything by mouth. He really wants some ice water or some ice chips to suck on to relieve his dry mouth.

Since he can't drink, he swabs his mouth periodically with a wet sponge stick and then suctions his mouth to clean up all the blood and fluids that accumulate. He has a bunch of clotted blood on his tongue and the inside of his mouth that really bothers him. The doctors said that they could clean that up when he is put under for surgery, but for now it's best if he suctions it himself since he can work around the tender spots and avoid hurting himself.

The neurologists don't seem to have any major concerns about any nerve damage or the bleed that was spotted on the CT scan. He's alert, has a full range of motion and no numbness, so he seems OK on that score. They will continue to monitor; when I asked they said that if he stays fine for 3 or 4 days he should be out of the woods on that score.

The opthamologist checked his eyes and found no problems other than a little double vision which he thinks is a result of his facial swelling. Denise said that during the afternoon one of the doctors mentioned that there is a possibility that there may be some surgery required to repair the bones in the orbit of his eye, but the opthamologist is apparently optimistic that that won't be necessary.

Denise also spoke to a face surgeon (I forget the actual designation, OFM? OMS?) who said that Jake would need only one surgery (excluding dental work). He also said that Jake had lost only one tooth. Early on we thought he had lost several and couldn't really tell since his mount is so disfigured. This was good news because we were expecting several surgeries and a bunch of dental implants.

Sounds like the surgery will be scheduled as soon as all his swelling subsides, I guess as early as next Thursday, according to what the doctor told Denise.

Jake also had his first non-family visitors today. Pendar and Mike (I think, actually I wasn't there) came up to visit. Unfortunately they didn't get to spend much time with him because the doctors arrived on rounds during their visit and shortly after that Jake was taken for his MRI. Jake's aunt Pam also drove down from Ojai to see him.

Overall I think he was pretty worn out from all the activity.

It has been weird. Early today I was thinking, "this is taking so long" to get any results from the doctors, but then I realized we were only midway through the second day. It only seems like a week already.

I can't even imagine what it feels like for Jake. He has been holding up incredibly well and even shows the occasional flashes of humor. Denise brought him this little graduation balloon of some sort of non-specific creature in a cap and gown. He looked at it and said, "What is wrong with this thing, has it got leprosy or something?"

Anyway, I will post more tomorrow. It's about quarter to one and I should try to sleep a little while he is out.