February 5th, 2011 by Conor

A couple of hours ago Danny was discharged from the hospital. It was a little bit slow going but that’s about all that could really be expected given that he was there for a total of 33 days. Danny won’t be able to leave Great Falls for a couple days while they make sure that everything is going as planned. He should be flying out on Monday or Tuesday if all goes well.

We are currently sitting at a hotel room a few miles from the hospital. By the time Michelle and I got to the hospital he had already realized that he was doing the same thing at a different place. Sitting, watching TV and chilling. Danny is ready to go HOME!

February 4th, 2011 by MIchelle

Today marks a month and one day since Danny was injured. We woke up this morning to an antibiotic IV session that lasted 45 minutes. The antibiotics are the only thing running through the IV anymore. He get’s to unplug when the antibiotics run out. I was anticipating blood work, but labs are finished now too. The nurse will be taking out the stitches in Danny’s stomach when he starts to wake up more and the pain pill takes effect. The staples run across his lower right abdomen and mark where the bone flap was once stored beneath his skin. The doctor will take out the remaining stitches in Danny’s head and then all that will be left is the PEG feeding tube and the stitches from the last procedure. All in all Danny will have two huge question mark shaped scars, one on either side of his head, a few hole marks where drains left his skull, a scar on the base of his neck where the tracheostomy once was, a scar the length of my hand on his stomach (I have small hands), and his arms are officially a pin cushion.

The speech therapist just came in and gave Danny apple juice! This is the first liquid that Danny has been given permission to drink. He’s been sneaking drinks of water and hasn’t had any trouble, but now that he’s cleared by the speech therapist he can drink whatever he wants. Before this he was only allowed to drink what they call nectar thick liquid and it’s pretty much the same consistency as a smoothie.

Up next is the formal memory test. This is the kind of stuff that Danny doesn’t really like, but it gives the therapist some black and white answers. The therapist had Danny repeat random numbers and words after her. She did a few more exercises and in the end said that Danny was doing great.

Danny is ready to leave. He’s passing all of the tests and feels like he’s ready to get out of here. This place is a structured environment and the therapist said that you won’t really know your deficits until you leave this place, but as far as I can tell Danny is going to do just fine. We’re just waiting for the go ahead and then we out of here!

-Michelle

February 3rd, 2011 by Conor

Send em: 603-496-6621 or
donations@dannyisthebomb.com

February 3rd, 2011 by dctrauma

(dictated by Danny to Michelle and Conor)

Not much has happened today. They did, however, pull a five inch tube out of my head that was there to drain my spinal fluid. The more I lay here in bed the more I want Glen Junction for three meals a day.

Although it was a mellow day, I walked around the hospital twice without falling. I even went on my first adventure by myself. I am still yet to have stepped outside in the last four and a half weeks. I can’t wait for fresh air Conor farts and claims that he’s trying to be the catalyst to get him outside, but Danny is waiting for his ice cream.

I was really pulling for Pandora but it looks like I’m headed to NH. It will be awesome to see all my good friends and family. Hopefully all my friends are prepared to make me some nice home cooked meals.

I’m now going to answer some questions:

Question Number 1

Annie: Here is my question – what is the first thing you are going to do when you are out of the hospital

a) makeout with Michelle

b) crack a brew

c) take a shower

d) all of the above

Answer: I’ve already made out with Michelle c) Take a shower.

Questions Number 2

Anonymous: Can danny speak now?

Answer: Seeing as though I dictated last night’s post to Conor, the answer is yes and today I am still able to speak.

Questions Number 3

Alex Ware: Would you feel better about bathing if it was in the hands of a 25 year old babe?

Answer: Yes, I would feel much better about that compared to a 50 year old woman who is dying to bathe me. For real it was creepy.

This hospital food isn’t cuttin’ it. Neither is being tube fed through my stomach. My dinner just arrived and I am going to go mow now.

Catch ya on the flip side

DCTrauma… Out

February 3rd, 2011 by MIchelle

The drain has been removed! Danny doesn’t have a silly hat on anymore and the tube is gone. It was a simple cut of a stitch and a little pull of the tube. There was a sting, but Danny already feels much better without the head bandages on. He just said that on a scale from 1-10 his head is at a 3 right now. His pain meds come at 6 AM, noon, 5 PM, and 9 PM. He is off the pain button and has an emergency backup pill that he can take in between times.

OT just got here and Danny and him made paper airplanes. Danny’s flew straight and Ron’s, the OT, ran into the wall. He’s testing Danny, but Danny is above average as far as TBI patients are concerned and we don’t think that they realize that. Here is and example of a couple of questions and answers:

What happens if you get a flat tire while driving down the road?

Answer: Pull over and call AAA.

Let’s say you burn your hand with hot water what would you do?

Answer: Pour cold water on it, or google the answer…call my mom.

Danny just passed with flying colors! They are going to pull back on OT for the rest of his stay. This is great news because it’s his least favorite therapy. It doesn’t mean that it’s over with, but no more once a day.

-Michelle

February 3rd, 2011 by Conor

Where should I go after I leave Montana?
[polldaddy poll=4493588]

February 2nd, 2011 by dctrauma

(Dictated by Danny to Conor) before you read this I want to make sure people know that Danny wanted his admin name to be DCTrauma and he wanted his category for posting to be DCTrauma Spills All. Those were his ideas, I wish I could take credit for such creativeness. Only Danny could be so creative even at a time like this. Without further ado…

Hi everyone,

Due to my 4^th brain surgery in a month my head is pounding.

I have a tube in my stomach for eating. It won’t come out for another 2 weeks. It sucks. There is a hole in my neck from where the trache tube went in for breathing. I have roughly 45 staples between my stomach and head. There is a drain coming out of my head where the spinal fluid drips out into.

It hurts to read and look at the computer screen. Lights and the telephone both bother me. Even the beep of the the machines bothers me. I want to punch out the guy who runs the floor waxing machine. I’m tired of waking up in the middle of the night to a nurse waiting to draw blood at 3 AM with a smile on her face. The anti clotting leggings drive me nuts. I frigging hate them! I haven’t showered in a month.

Old ladies in the ICU were really excited to bathe me and it was creepy as hell. So I faked an asthma attack to get out of it. I didn’t want to be washed by 2 50 year old women.

Ill be sure to write more tomorrow. If anyone has any questions for me post them here and I will answer them. Thanks for checking in and thanks so much for all your support.

~Danny

February 2nd, 2011 by Conor

Another day down, another day closer to heading home. It looks like they are going to take the drain out and then wait until Danny’s pain becomes manageable before they get him out of here. That might anytime within the next 4-8 days. It really just depends on how his pain is.

The major issue right now is the headaches that Danny is experiencing. Luckily, I never get headaches, so I can’t really relate to the pain that Danny is feeling. I hate headaches, and I know before this experience Danny had never really had many major headaches either. He is lucky that it is the only problem that he is really having to deal with at this point, but I don’t really know if Danny fully gets that yet. He hasn’t really seemed to grasp how big and potentially detrimental this could have been.

It might be awhile until he fully grasps what happened. Every time someones name comes into the picture of the recovery process he wonders “how does so-and-so know this happened?” I have to explain that there is a whole website and that there are people around the world that we don’t even know that know this happened. Danny you didn’t break a bone in your hand. You didn’t snap your wrist. You were critically injured and had 3 life threatening surgeries on your brain. Numbers were discussed with regards to your chances of survival. This was and is H U G E. This will likely in some way or another change the rest of your life- shoot I know it already has for me.

Although if anything we are on the good side of what could have been really bad its still hard to believe that things are so good. I hope that there are no major complications down the line with all this because it almost doesn’t seem possible that things are going so smoothly. I know that Michelle and I have both had multiple surgeries on one of our knees. Both of still experience some major creekyness in our knees as if they could use some oil and some reworking. At the moment, I am glad that it is my knee that has the complications. I can’t imagine how a brain works that needs oil. To Michelle and I our limitations are physical and are exposed when we try to stand up quickly or go for a jog. To Danny, his limitations might not be evident until a long time from now when he tries to do something like math or when he straps on his snowboard. Almost ANYTHING could be effected from a brain injury since it serves as such a hub for the whole body. I continue to cross my fingers everyday that he will continue to heal back to 100%. Because neither of us have experienced 4 surgeries on one of our knees. Danny has done that to his brain.

It might be a few weeks or months until he is really able to grasp the whole situation. It has to be hard trying to make sense of the whole thing when all you can think about is that that you have horrible headaches and want to get out of this hospital. I know that YOU, me, and everyone else out there have had four and a half weeks to process and try to make sense of this event. Soon it will hit Danny exactly how huge this all was. If not, good for him for not letting him skip a beat. But I sure as heck hope he grasps what this incident did to the rest of us. This has been the slowest, hardest month of my life.

Until tomorrow.

Conor

February 2nd, 2011 by Conor

As always send em to 603-496-6621 or donations@dannyisthebomb.com

February 2nd, 2011 by Conor

Pictures sent in by Colin Tuttle.