For those of you who do not know me, I am the Cris that was mentioned in the previous update that Nick wrote. I left Jamie this afternoon after being with her for a week, and I thought I would give a little update for the facebook group and blog.
I can honestly say that I witnessed some amazing improvements in the week that I was with Jamie. She really is moving forward in this lengthy healing process (yay no more waiting game). Jamie has entered a pretty steady routine here at St. Joseph's (which the family has nicely organized into an impressive spreadsheet). At around 10:15 or so, the wound care team arrives and removes all of her bandages, cleans her wounds, scrapes off the dead skin, and wraps her up again. Having sat through this process several times now, I have actually seen her skin getting better; there is much more fleshy, alive skin and tissue and it is pushing the dead away. Jamie is always very focused during this process and has seen for herself her body's improvement. After wound therapy, Jamie is usually a bit tired, but at noon we religiously watch "Ellen" which always makes us laugh (and yes, Patsy has already emailed her to see if Jamie could get on the show…no response yet). Halfway through "Ellen", she starts getting ready for the hyper baric chamber, a.k.a. the aquarium (this involves taking pain meds, getting unplugged, and getting an ice pack ready). After they transport her to the room, she switches beds and slides into the chamber. Jamie is now quite used to lying in a glass tube for 2 hours of the day, but unfortunately there are no good shows from 1-3, so we usually watch a bit of Maury and Full House (scratch the previous comment, Full House is amazing).
**And here comes the first awesome news from the chamber today- she was able to take a sheet off of herself, on her own, and was even able to wipe the sweat off of her forehead. This not only relieved Jamie's agitation with her sweaty face, but also made her realize that this glass healing tube is doing something for her body, and she had an enormous proud smile on her face.
After the chamber, Jamie does physical therapy where she continues to push herself to get stronger. ** And here is the second exciting news of the day- with a special purple machine (which I think we should name the purple dinosaur) the PT team helped Jamie get into a chair where she sat for a few hours (mind you, this is not a luxurious comfortable chair, a normal one, you can sit in it too if you visit). I can only imagine how nice it was for her to just sit after laying in a bed for so long. Needless to say, we are all excited about this new part of her life.
After I saw her in that chair, I left for Austin, but new visitors came to see her and will continue to. Jamie's social calendar is getting quite full - and as it should be - she's a pretty amazing person. I would encourage people to keep visiting – it's a great way for her to spend her late afternoon, and if you're lucky you might even get to watch a movie on the sweet projector with her. If you can't visit, keeping sending in the positive vibes, thoughts, prayers, and teddy bears (just kidding, she has a full shelf of them). Happy Holidays!
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