Tuesday, July 21, 2009

How it happened. A lot of folks have been asking, and guess it’s better if Kelley doesn’t have to tell everybody the story over and over. She and Sean were leaving the house to go on one of their bike rides. Their house unfortunately is situated at the top of a short and steep slope relative to the street and sidewalk. There is no easy way in and out of the house for her, but in her knobby tired wheelchair she had developed the confidence to switch back down her yard to the sidewalk. It’s a class 4 (maybe 4+) move for sure, but you know how it is when you’ve developed some skills, and done something often enough, just doesn’t seem that risky any more. So she left Sean to lock up the house while she went down the slope. But right near the end of the slope her tire dropped into a large fist sized hole that she did not see or know was there, and the abrupt stop pitched her out of the chair. She came down on he knees in a deep knee bend. It is disturbing that this fall caused so much damage, because it just doesn’t seem like the impact was that hard (she went down on grass). But she does have very little muscular support to absorb the shock, and we just aren’t sure at this point to what degree the condition of her bones may have become compromised by the events over the past year. It will be one of the things that are examined in her follow-up to this accident. More later, Sue

Monday, July 20, 2009

Shock, despair, disbelief, heartbroken, angry. These are a few words to describe the range of emotions Kelley as been experiencing this past week, and have been shared by her friends in your voicemails and emails. I just spent a day and a half with her in the surreal time warp that is the University of Davis Medical Center. I don’t know how to describe the experience, but I am not the one that has had the traumatic injury, am not on drugs, but still am in a perpetual state of feeling, " what the f***ing hell is going on"? Can you imagine how Kelley feels? After many long hours interspersed by brief interludes of various peoples of different roles and responsibilities popping in and spouting off various confusing, conflicting, and lacking amounts of information, we finally got a few minutes of time with the Doctor who performed her surgery, and will be doing the follow up on her recovery. He is expecting 4 to 5 months for her fractures to heal. During this time she is to do virtually no activity with her legs, so her rehab is essentially stalled during this time. She came home from the hospital this afternoon, and we started setting up her situation for an extended period of bed rest and loss of mobility. I will post more information over the next several days. Please do call or email, and make plans to stop by if you can. She could sure use the support right now friends. She is still Kelley, staying strong, trying to keep her justifiably earned meltdowns brief, and looking forward. Lets help her get through this. Sue.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Kelley has had a pretty major set back in her life. Last saturday she "tripped" in her wheel chair, and in the fall ended up breaking both her femurs. She did not know her injury was so bad until her legs started swelling a couple of days later. She just got out of surgery this evening, and the doctors have told Kurt it went well. She has some new pins in her legs, and cannot put weight on her legs for 6 weeks, so she will not be able to do her high level physical therapy for some time, and undoubtably will be basically bed ridden for awhile. Her spirits are still strong, although she knows she is in for a tough couple months ahead (as if her life has not been tough enough). So please give her a call, and for those who live close, arrange to stop by if you can, and maybe offer to run some errands for her and Kurt if they need. And of course the NTAF fund could still use a boost, since there will undoubtably be some costs associated with this situation. Will keep the blog posted as events unfold in this new unforeseen detour in Kelleys Journey to Recovery.