Samantha’s Traumatic Brain Injury: Week Five

I HATE YOU CORONA VIRUS!!

As of last Thursday, Samantha’s rehab hospital wasn’t allowing any visitors at all. This was devastating! Samantha, from what we can tell, has some short term memory loss and often gets confused about things. She honestly doesn’t understand what the virus is or what kind of impact it’s making around the world. Not being able to see any familiar faces would have been so hard for her.

Luckily, my parents ended up getting clearance to visit her. No one else though. They try to get up as much as possible now that they are the only ones she can see. Since I’m not there, I’m relying on them to document and take photos for me.

One really good thing that has happened this week is her walking! She has been cruising down the hallways without the walker but with the therapists always close by. I’ve seen videos of her singing along to music, so she at least hasn’t forgotten that! It’s hard to tell what she actually remembers. I said this in the last blog but she will say random things that don’t make sense. It seems like she’s realizing what she’s saying it’s right and then stops talking about it.

Everyone asks if she will be getting her skull put back on. She definitely will but the WHEN is a mystery. Obviously with all this Corona stuff going on… I’m sure it will take even longer. The shape of her head is becoming more prominent because the swelling is gone. Once that is back in, I’ll be happy. She notices it a lot more and I’m sure it doesn’t make her feel the best.

Her mood has significantly improved. My mom said that every time she visits, Samantha has a big smile on her face the whole time. She was also asking Samantha some questions regarding what she remembers before all this happened. It seems like she doesn’t remember much from the past year. She didn’t know where she was working, what car she had, what she was doing, etc. They are having her keep a journal each day now so she can look back and read about her day-to-day activity.

She’s also doing more fun activities like playing Uno!

The doctors told my parents that there is still not a definite time for when she can return home. They did say to expect her to be there another 3-4 weeks though.

It’s great that she is in good spirits and it doesn’t seem like having less visitors is effecting her a ton! Before the virus hit, we were going to be bringing her kids in to see her finally. AGAIN – HATE YOU CORONA! She has FaceTimed a few times with them though.

COURT UPDATE: the next court hearing for this case was suppose to be next week. We haven’t heard if it’s postponed or anything yet. Besides that, there hasn’t been any updates with that situation.