Nathan’s Status

I had my followup visit with the neurosurgeon today. He thought my cuts were healing up very well. He said that the numb feeling would go away in my neck and shoulder. My foot is also experiencing numbness as a result of the graft site going all the way to my ankle. The doctor said that much of that would return, however there will always be a numb spot where the nerve was taken from.

I told the nurse about having phantom pain in my ankle already and she gave me a prescription for meds that will help “calm my nerves down”. It’s a really low dosage to get started on but I’m not sure if I want to even start. Once started I would need to continue it for an undetermined amount of time, or as long as the phantom pain lasts. I think I’m going to see what God’s plan for healing is before I take drugs. At any rate, my followup visit went really well and I feel positive about it! I still can’t take showers but that will only last for another 4-5 days. At that point I can let the bandages get wet. I can’t soak in a hot tub but I can at least take a shower. Right now I’m giving myself sponge baths and they are less than fulfilling.

Happy Sabbath everyone! I watched a movie with my brother over dinner yesterday. I let myself sleep in this morning. It’s now 11:30am here. I had my own little church service in my room since I’m not going to be at a church today. I slept even better last night. I didn’t have to get up at all to go to the bathroom during the night. I feel like I slept somewhat soundly.

The only thing I’m worried about is my shoulder blade-area on my back is covered in some kind of rash I think. It looks like there are hundreds of pimples and it itches. It covers a total of about half my back. It’s not so bad that I feel like I need to go to a hospital, but it makes me wonder what it is. It doesn’t bug me a whole lot, just itches. I’ve never had a reaction to medications before and I don’t have any allergies. I don’t know what t could be. Do you have any ideas for me?

I’ve been staying at my brother and his wife’s house since my operation. Yesterday I spent a bulk part of it sleeping. I slept in until 2:30pm and then didn’t even go outside the rest of the day. Yesterday I was still very uncomfortable with the amount of residual pain I was in. I only took oxycodone though for the pain. Today has been an improvement so far. I slept better last night. I woke up at 9am and felt like I was ready to get up. I took Vikedin and then I took a sponge-shower (cause I can’t get any of my bandages wet), went for a walk outside for a little bit, and then returned to eat breakfast. I feel very productive today! I had a good conversation with my mom on the phone, my dad, as well as my younger brother who I’ve had a really hard time talking to ever since I returned from the nursing home.

Today has had many positive things happen in it so far. The fact that I have three new surgical sites on my body helps to reinforce my thoughts of getting a job in or around a medical facility. I don’t know where God is leading my path in life. I’ve been putting out some feelers in terms of finding another internship but have not had anything pop up with a possibility yet. I’ll just keep waiting for God to lead me in one direction or another.

So the surgery went the whole five hours. The neurosurgeon took a nerve from my left calf and used it to neurotize my left bicep. He reported the surgery went well. The exploration part of the surgery went better than expected. He was able to find a nerve coming from C4 that he tied into. It had been thought previously that C4 was uprooted at the spinal cord. Apparently there was enough nerve still there he could use it. There is around 12inches of grafting that was required. Since nerves grow about at the rate of  an inch a month on average, it will most likely be 12 months before I notice any movements in my left arm. The doctor said I would most likely have a 50% chance of being able to lift more than just gravity with it once I got movement back.

To quote the doctor, he said “It is what it is, there’s nothing more that could have been done”. He did the most that he could. He said that the surgery looked really good. He felt good about how the graft layed. I’ve been off of the morphine drip for an hour now. I’ve been given Vikeden as a pain killer. I feel like my world is in slow motion still though. I’m not dizzy, but kinda woosy. The nurses are getting my prescriptions ready for me because the doctor said I could go home tonight still! My brother can come pick me up after he gets off work. I can’t take a regular shower for two weeks. I’m not supposed to get my incisions wet. Then I have to be back here in a week for a followup visit. I’m going to be doing a lot of driving in the near future.

I have a new update that has recently just came about fruition. I’ve been contemplating getting a surgery for my left bicep in order to get some movement back in it. I contacted the doctor’s office and they actually had a slot opening come up because of a cancellation. I’m scheduled for my exploratory surgery day after tomorrow (Monday) at 9AM. I had my pre-op meeting with the doctor, nurses for the physical examination, as well as the anesthesiologist last week on thursday. The doctor will be transplanting a nerve that he will harvest from either my neck, left forearm, or lower calf area. It will be an intensive operation lasting 5 hours. I will be required to stay in the hospital for a minimum of 4 days for observation purposes.

There is a small chance I could wake up after the operation just to hear that the doctor was unable to complete the operation in it’s entirety. I’m really hoping that this doesn’t happen. I obviously won’t know until the operation is all over and I wake up from the general anesthesia.

I apologize for not having written on here more frequently in the recent past. I’ve been busy trying to make a life for myself and while that may have been making progress in some areas, in other areas I also failed greatly. Being fired from my internship was the biggest blow that I took. I’m still not sure where I will get my next and last internship. (My school only gives two tries at an internship before expulsion from the program). At any rate, I feel like I am learning how to deal with this new Nathan. I don’t feel like I know what to do, but I at least have more hope. This much is encouraging in itself. I really thank anyone that is still reading this for your support and prayers. It’s so very special and meaningful. I’ll post again once my surgery happens!

Have you heard that old saying? I remember hearing that as I was growing up. Anymore these days all it makes me think about is a question: why do these “time” flies like an arrow  instead of a tree branch anyway? It seems like an arrow would be hard to land on, especially if it was moving! If that old saying is talking about what insects like to do for fun, what about the alternate meaning behind the saying? It’s also an age-old wisery talking about how fast time goes by, especially if one is not paying attention.

I like the complexity behind such a simple old phrase. I like how there can be two alternate realities behind the same words. It makes me think about life and how many times there are multiple ‘realities’ going on at the same time. We can choose to live in the reality we carve for ourselves, carefully sealed off from the influence of others. Changing can be such a difficult thing to do when we’re used to living a certain way. Two people can live side by side and yet be living two very different lives. I think this is where my inspiration comes from to help people. Now that I have been forced to totally restructure my life and change things about me i never thought I would change, I have a new perspective on what it means to change. It encourages me to know that change is just the way of looking at things though. Like the phrase, “time flies like an arrow”.

Standing Where He Once Lay

Sunday morning was the one year anniversary of Nathan’s motorcycle accident.   Like the year before, we had enjoyed the activities of Alumni weekend and again planned to conclude the weekend with a pancake breakfast at Grandpa’s.  Like the previous year, Nathan and Aaron each drove their own vehicle, this time their cars.  When they were late for breakfast, anxiety levels increased until we learned they had stopped for some private reflection at the crash site.  After breakfast we all gathered at the scene of the accident, and  felt the rush of past memories and the emotions that came with them.

We discovered that the feelings we now had were quite different then the ones we had a year ago.  Then our hearts were aching with pain, as we saw that 12 seconds of time was on the verge of destroying the life of Nathan, as he lay barely breathing, unconscious, at the foot of the telephone pole.  On the other hand, as we watched Nathan standing on the spot where he once lay,  we were so thankful that 12 months of time had restored Nathan to life with us.

The restoration is not complete yet, and maybe never will be, with the left arm still lacking motor nerve connections in C5, C6, C7 & T1 vertebrae.  The left arm is still part of the whole body restoration that we have given to God for the past year.  I would like nothing better then to have that arm be working again!  However, as I stood by that spot and remembered Nathan’s unconscious form with half is clothes shredded off, broken, bleeding and distorted, all I wanted was him back so I could talk to him, have a relationship with him, hear him enjoy his enthusiastic laugh again, even if there were lots of body parts that didn’t work.  I didn’t want a funeral.  It is 12 months later and I have much more then I wanted!  We tried to play racquetball again like we did last Alumni weekend but the gym was closed so we played ping pong instead.  Now that’s something to be thankful for.

I love this picture !

Compare it to his front web page picture that we chose to portray the Nathan we all knew and loved and wanted back.  That picture greeted us each time, as over 17,000 people came to visit the website and check on Nathan’s progress.  That picture gave each of us hope and a vision of restoration when all the other pictures we were posting depicted the damage done to his body.  With God’s healing power and intervention, we have him back!  Our hearts are full of praise to God for what He has done!

We are so thankful for the untold number of people who prayed for Nathan.  Thank you to everyone who took time to write notes on the web page.  It was a source of support and courage that we had not anticipated when we made the website so people could know what was happening so they could pray accordingly.

During those 12 months of recovery, one of the texts that we clung to was, Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”  While many things have already worked together for good, we continue to ask God for his leading and healing in Nathan’s life.  God’s role throughout this earth’s history has been to bring something good out of all the bad that happens.  He is the Powerful, Lover and Creator of mankind who is always rescuing, healing, fixing and restoring.  Our experience has provided personal proof of God’s consistent character. We invite you to join us, as you have so faithfully done in the past, in thanking Him and trusting Him with Nathan’s life and future.

Post by Dad

I’m going out to the crash with my two brothers today. 9AM a year ago is when my crash happened and God saw fit to keep my breathing instead of letting the Devil snuff my light out on that telephone pole 12 whole months ago. I’m going to go out to that telephone pole in a just a couple minutes and sit there by it. My stomach is in knots but I’m not sick. I don’t know if anything will happen today seen as it’s my anniversary but I intend to celebrate with my family who have come from Seattle and Portland in order to be here with me for my visit to the telephone pole. I’ve visited the telephone pole before at other times but this time it’s significant: it was exactly this time last year when it happened. I still don’t know why my crash happened and I might not ever know, but I do know that it’s the day God decided to save me from dying. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers on this special and unique day. This day is symbolic of so many things happening but there’s one thing that I think stands out above the rest: today is the day that God gave back to me for a reason.

I’m starting to let the idea of being handicapped settle in. This week I applied to get a disabled parking permit because that’s what I’ll be: handicapped for life. I might as well try to get good parking while I’m at it, right? I dunno how to do this grieving thing. Do you think I should go talk to a therapist? I’m thinking I might need to. If I do, I need to find someplace cheap (free). It’s weird thinking that even though I’m training to be a therapist I might need one myself. I was never afraid of “cracking under pressure” before my accident. I was confident and took everything in stride. Now, I’m not feeling confident doing anything. Maybe this is all just part of the emotions included in the grieving process but I don’t know. It’s said that in order to get friends, first you have to be one. I don’t even know how to be a friend. I don’t know how to “get” friends. I’m alone here in Walla Walla. Thank you for reading this, it’s helping me to type it out.

I just got back from my last set of tests and succeeding meeting with the neurosurgeon. The positive news is that the tests that were completed on me this week had really clear results. They were extensive and very informative. All the tests showed identical results. They all confirmed the same things. I can be very satisfied that I went the extra mile in finding out everything I possibly could. I wanted to be informed of the complete extent of the damage to my nervous system and now I have been.

The results showed that I had indeed pulled the roots of the two nerves C-8 and T-1 out of my spinal cord. This was assumed from earlier testing. What I know now is that the nerves C-7, C-6, and C-5 were also pulled out of my spinal cord. Every nerve has two channels, the receptor part and the motor-movement part. C-5 is missing the motor-movement part but still has the receptor part attached. This part of the nerve is not backwards compatible with the motor-movement part. This explains why I still have feeling in the back of my arm but do not have any movement.

The doctor was a very realistic and straightforward person. There is only one surgery that was even remotely close to being helpful and it would involve taking a nerve from my neck to transplant it down to the bi-cep in my left arm. He said there was a 12% to 30% chance of it being successful. Successful in this case means being able to lift my left arm against gravity. The best case scenario would give me enough strength to maybe hold a peanut better jar with that arm. The nerves he could transplant are too small to lend any better/bigger results. He said he was willing to do the surgery but he wanted me to know how slim the chance of success was, especially this late after my accident. He said that for nerves to be surgically attached is best if done immediately after the injury within the same month if possible. It’s almost been a full year for me. The 26th of this month is my anniversary.

So it looks like I will always be disabled. There is no way around it at this point. I’ll post again when I can get my head on straight again.