Wednesday's Update: Jamie is sitting (sometimes singing) and agitated

Hey everyone!

I'll break the latest update down into a few short topics -

1) Jamie was moved today (though she's going to be moved back into her bed later) into a very nice, medical chair. Of course, she is in pain when she's moved. This is the first time that Jamie has been out of the prone position since Thursday, November 13. At this moment (6pm) Jamie is sitting in a chair and mom is laying in her bed, next to her, asleep. This is definitely for the best, for mom and for Jamie (and for the other siblings). Her feet are now slightly below her heart/center of gravity now, and we can hope that this will increase blood flow to her feet. Still, she's in this chair so she her body doesn't start to atrophy. This is the first step to getting her moving again, which, by the way, will happen. She's not going to lose mobility in any of her limbs or anything. The permanent damage may just be limited to her fingertips/thumbs and toes/feet, and we're continuing to be optimistic about minimizing the damages there.

2) Jamie's heart rate spent most of the day being super high, somewhere in the 145-165 range (spiked at 170!). She's been super frustrated lately and agitated about her condition. She's also in a ton of pain, which is being mitigated a bit by her pain killers. Also, she is becoming more aware of the situation related to her fingers and toes. She can probably see her fingers now and they look bad, and amputation of the fingers, up to the first/smallest joint is a near certainty. Because of these new realities for Jamie, she's been a bit flustered lately. So, we've tried limiting her visitors, though we expect that people can visit more regularly on Friday (probably tomorrow, and we'd love visitors on Thanksgiving, but we'll understand if we don't see you).

[Note: We are grateful for the recommendations of doctors that specialize in the hands/feet/plastics/vascular/amputation/prosthetic areas! Please keep them coming! We will explore any possibilities so as to retain as much functionality for Jamie as possible]

3) I should note that her skin is clearing up too. If you hadn't been visiting, the original illness caused a large amount of blood to rise near the surface of her skin, causing discoloration. This is largely going away... so that's good.

4) We are becoming more aware of the difficulties awaiting Jamie once she leaves the ICU. She will be experiencing some wild and understandable emotional swings. We were told this by our favorite nurse, and she told us not to take these things personally and to keep coming at Jamie with support, encouragement and love. In fact, the nurse said that the initial difficulties that Jamie will have to endure, as well as the burdens that this will place on those people supporting her, will be intense (though these hardships will decrease some as her rehabilitation progresses). We've said it once and we'll say it again, some of Jamie's biggest battles are still ahead of her. Once her physical injuries have healed, she will face a long a grueling process of healing herself mentally. Jamie is incredibly strong and wonderful, so we have no doubt that Jamie will meet this challenge head on. We want to make sure the rest of Schanbaum's Army is up to the task. (Yeah, that's you, reading this sentence, right now).

Finally, a note about the siblings and mom. We truly appreciate the support and phone calls, but we don't want anyone to feel bad if we don't return missed calls. In fact, it may be a good idea to call again later, since we're likely to forget in the chaos. Thank you for the support, and we couldn't do it without your help.

There will be another update tomorrow, though if there isn't, it's because I'm at the UT game. Go Horns! 45-35!

Love,
Nick