My Reflections:

J, the boys & I all visit Papa at rehab.

So glad this place has a room where families can gather, talk, eat; kids can run around, be loud, play.  Nice that we usually happen to be the only ones in it too.  That helps.

Cause sometimes we’re noisy.

And messy….

Thank goodness for the family room at rehab.

And plenty of wet wipes….

When we first arrive today, we immediately notice the change in Papa’s speech.  These past couple weeks he’s been improving so much, getting easier to understand by the day, and understanding us better too.

And now it seems he’s lost any ground he’d gained.

What’s happened?

He’s discouraged and I remember words from a friend from church.  She’s worked as a nurse at this very rehab facility, in the very brain unit Papa is in.  She told me that brain injury and recovery is rarely linear, you’ll have your ups & downs, gains & set-backs, and often there is no clear reason why.  Recovery from brain injury is unpredictable.

And now I see first-hand what she was talking about, see how one day Papa’s speech is almost back to normal, and the next it’s as much of a jumbled mess as the day he got here.

Discouraging.

Papa is clearly discouraged.

Papa lets us know that he’s decided not to proceed with treatment.  And it’s tough to hear him say this.  It’s not an easy decision, but it’s his decision and, considering everything, I can’t say I fault him for what he has chosen.

A few days ago, he’d asked me my thoughts on this.  What I thought about him proceeding with treatment or not.  I told him I understood it was a hard decision, with the risks involved and unknowns of how it would affect his quality and length of life.  But I told him I selfishly wanted him to pursue radiation & chemo, at least some part of it, because I wanted to keep him around.  At least if he was doing some sort of treatment, we’d still have hope to cling to:  hope that things would improve, hope that we’d have more time with him.  I told him it was hard to think of him forgoing treatment, because that would mean we’d be giving up hope, giving up that chance.  It was scary to think about what giving up that hope would mean.

And now we need to think about it.  I need to think about it.

But treatment or no, I will not give up on hope that easily.  I’ll research alternative treatment options, still try to do something to help Papa even if chemo & radiation are now out of the picture.

I cannot just stand by and do nothing.

I’ve got to do something.

I’m at least glad when Papa agrees to keep the appointment I made for him with our oncologist friend for a second opinion (I’m sure just a means to placate me more than anything, but I’ll take it).  We’ll just have to wait and see what comes of that.