Signs of Progress and Technology Update

As you know, our amazing team created TeamSward.com to be a one stop shop. We are so grateful that you all have been following along on Caring Bridge, adding your well-wishes for David, and please keep them coming because we most definitely need all of them and more in the coming months.

As of this post, we're moving the posts I have been making on CaringBridge to Team Sward so everything is in one place. You will still be notified when a new post has been made and again, please keep those well-wishes coming for David. 

If you have any issues please hit reply to this email and it will go to our friend Jenna who will take care of any technical glitches with this first send (thanks for your patience with technology!).

We are treading water, waiting until we get the green light from Shepherd to head to Atlanta. David was ready to go on Thursday but the pieces (insurance) haven’t aligned. Now we’re waiting to see if the storm coming into the Washington-Baltimore area affects our departure. Grrrr. I’m glad we’re going south. Pitchers and catchers reported, spring training games have started: winter needs to be done as I am more than ready for spring and rebirth. Speaking of which, the Nats won their two spring training games yesterday and are now 2-0. 

London causing trouble outside of Baltimore!

Yesterday, my dad Mel, both boys, and my cousin Mark came in to see David and they brought with them a special visitor…London! I was too busy making sure she didn’t step on David to take a picture but I’m thankful she knows he’s still with us and I hope she will start to feel more like her regular self. While we completed all of the necessary paperwork for London to gain entry, some liberties on how she gained entry to the building may or may not have been taken. After their visit, the chaplain (who for some reason is in charge of arranging pet visitors) stopped by and proceeded to tell me the actual process and to make sure I knew that I hadn’t followed it.  Once he walked out, Doug looked at me and said, “You got scolded by the chaplain,” to which I replied, “Not the first time a member of the clergy has admonished or scolded me, and I feel very confident in saying it won’t be the last.” (For those who may not know, both our parents are/were Episcopal priests.)  I will say I’m pretty proud of my track record of smuggling pets into hospitals - a couple years ago when our friend Missy was in the hospital, her cat may have paid her a visit on her way to stay at our house for a few weeks. 

There are definite signs of progress and hope...One of the neurosurgeons, Maureen, who had the horrible responsibility of breaking the news to Doug and me that David’s injury would leave him partially paralyzed, has been a regular fixture in our Shock Trauma universe these last 2 weeks. Each morning she comes in to see if we have any questions and to check on the surgical site; one morning she added a stitch after they took out one of the ports that funneled out the fluid. On Wednesday morning she declared that she put those staples in there, and she would be the one to take them out. Sure enough, on Thursday morning, all 15 staples came out. This morning, a different fellow came in and declared everything was looking good back there. I shall take his word for it. David will keep the cervical collar on for at least another 4-6 weeks so his bones and muscles can build their strength and take over the hard work that the collar is doing now. 

One of the other things Shock Trauma does so well is integrating alternative medicine. While the only therapy dog that has visited David has been London, David’s had acupuncture 3 times now. Yesterday, he felt one of the needles going into his right foot - something that we didn’t think was even possible. While I am pretty confident he won’t be jumping out of bed, even having some feeling and sensation is just mind-blowing (to me at least - but the neuro fellow seemed pretty excited by it too). Gratitude!!! 

I’m hoping our next post will be from Atlanta. Thank you all. 

Erika & David