Time flies when you're havin' fun, which is why I haven't updated this in 3 days. Not! My life is in shambles, that's why I haven't updated this in 3 days.

Ok, here's a quick synopsis of the past few days, not in chronological order whatsoever...

Trevor's leg tremors, or "clonis" as the med-heads like to call it, have now spread to the left leg and right arm. Whatever body part affected will just start vibrating out of control until it is repositioned. It makes everyone around him uncomfortable but he doesn't even seem to notice. The nurse wants to give him a muscle relaxing medication for it. The potential side effects of the medication are that it could make him fatigued and slow down therapy. I'm no doctor but it seems a little dumb to put him on medicine that would negatively affect his therapy when he's going through 6 hours of it per day.

Sitting in speech therapy with Trev gives me a whole lot of mixed emotions. I have to try my absolute hardest not to laugh or cry at the same time. It's excruciatingly painful to see him struggle and get stuck on words that normal people don't even have to think twice about, but at the same time some of the responses he comes up with are hilarious.

The therapist told Trevor to say the days of the week. He said Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday, etc. Forgot Wednesday and got stuck on Thursday.

She asked him a bunch of yes or no questions; he responded by counting "1,2..."

She then gave him a calendar and asked him what month he was born in. He pointed directly to May. Score!

As messed up as it is for me to say, I think the best way to describe the way Trevor talks is like a little Latino kid with a speech impediment. Although it's really exciting to hear him talk, it's heartbreaking at the same time. You can tell he's thinking normally and has something he wants to say, but simply cannot get it out. And when he gets stuck on words, ("perseveration" as professionals with high-paying jobs would say) I don't think he realizes that what comes out of his mouth isn't actually what he was going for at all. He just kind of looks at you like "Are you dumb? How don't you get it?"

So the whole time we've been in the rehab unit, the medical staff has taken pride in the fact that they have supposedly never dropped a patient or let a patient fall. Three days ago, the man in Room 2615 fell. The night before last, the nurses dropped Trevor. Yesterday, they dropped another patient. Definitely don't think we will be leaving Trevor alone any time soon. Way to go dingbats!

Trevor and my mom went to take the elevator down to get lunch. They were sitting in the elevator and Trevor goes "One, one, one, one." A few minutes passed and my mom realized she never pressed the button. They were going to level one. Coincidence? No one will never know.

We're all getting really sick of Impatient Medical Rehab room 2613, so we try to stay away as much as possible. Once Trevor's meals get delivered, we head down to the cafeteria so we can all eat together in a new setting (which is already getting old for the record). As far as hospital food goes, they do pretty well here. Trevor and I are super down with the self-serve frozen yogurt. We pretty much share a cup of it with every meal. It turns into a cycle of him trying to drink it out of the spoon, me telling him it's a spoon not a straw, him trying to drink it out of the side of the cup, me telling him to use the spoon and then him finally using the spoon. Over and over again. This makes me wonder how good his short term memory is. He eventually gets it, but it definitely takes a while.

His sense of humor gets better and better each day. His facial expressions are getting more Trevor-ish by the second. You can usually tell what bad or nice word he is trying to call you by the look on his face. Not stoked for him to call me "whore" or "fat-ass" every five seconds again, but it's definitely coming soon!

Yesterday at lunch, Trevor stole my dad's cheeseburger, unwrapped it and went to take a bite. I told him no way, and he got a huge smile on his face, laughed and set it back down.

On the way back up to his room, I put him in charge. I asked which way he wanted to go; he said "straight." I said "you really want me to push you into that wall?" He laughed and said "nope". I asked him if he wanted to go right; "nope". I asked him if he wanted to go left; "nope". I told him to point to where he wanted to go; he pointed to Starbucks and said "shoe". I wheeled him over to Starbucks and asked what he wanted; he pointed to the menu and said "shoe" again. Super helpful, thanks Trevor. As I was ordering him something to drink, he yanked my wallet out of my hand, grabbed my Nascar credit card and threw it at the cashier. I hope the barista spat in his drink.

Our homework assignment for tonight is to go home and try to get dressed with one hand so we know how Trevor feels. I'm probably going to cheat.

If you're looking for an update on yesterday, you might want to prepare yourselves for disappointment. You see, just before bed last night I was tiptoeing in the dark and tripped over my phone charger. This caused my brand new phone to fly directly into the glass of water on my bedside table. The best part is that I didn't notice until about an hour later when my phone was making this really bizarre UFO-like ringing noise for 5 minutes straight. Not only did I lose the majority of my contacts, but I also lost all the notes and pictures to update everyone on what happened yesterday, which was huge by the way. But hey it's cool, luckily I have this really sweet backup "smart" phone that turns off randomly and has a completely shattered screen. Life is good!

First I wanted to point out how awesome Trevor's support system truly is. Who else would have this big of a crowd rooting him on during the little things, such as playing "Connect Four?" Not very many people, that's who. Although it's really unfortunate and heartwrenching to see all the brain and spinal cord injury patients going through intensive rehab with no family or friends there, it makes me realize how lucky we are. Most everyone in my family has been willing to give up everything going on in there lives to be here, and to me, that is huge.

Apparently the earlier sessions of therapy went really well today. Supposedly Trevor counted for 1 to 2o, was able to distinguish between five different objects, said "Gabe," knew he had 3 brothers and 2 sisters and said his birthday. However, by the point I got there, he was overwhelmed and exhausted.

First was speech therapy.

The therapists worked a lot with how how to use pictures in order to express what Trevor is feeling or needing. They held out four pictures: a happy face, a sad face and two other things that have momentarily escaped my memory. They asked Trevor which one meant yes; he pointed to every single before getting it right. Then they drew a bunch of pictures on a sheet of paper for Trevor to use. There were pictures of happy, sad, pain, urinal, toilet, up, down, etc. All of these seem like they would be super helpful for someone like Trevor, who is completely unable to communicate what he needs. Only problem is that I'm not sure whether he gets it or is just guessing all the time...

Next they wanted to see how well Trevor does with following commands. This was absolutely painful to watch. If you need someone to be on your "Simon Says" team, I wouldn't recommend picking Trevor. Wait, are there such things as "Simon Says" teams? Whatever.

The therapist asked Trevor where his shoulder is; he pointed to his cheek. She showed him where it actually is. She then told him to lift his shoulder up; he raised his hand. She asked him again; he raised his whole arm. She asked him again; he rubbed his face. He seems to always rub the scruff on his face when he's either frustrated or confused. It's totally his thinking face. Anyways, after this she helped show him how to lift his shoulder up by doing it for him. She asked him to lift it up again; he lifted his right arm up with the left one. She asked him again; he rubbed his face. She asked him to do it again; he lifted his shoulder. YES! But then she asked him to do it again and he raised his arm.

He got almost every command wrong and didn't even seem to notice. During the last rodeo, I remember therapy being more of a time where he would do or say something completely wrong or off topic, but would realize the error. This time seems totally different. I just wish I could get inside that head of his and know what he's thinking and how much of all this he actually understands.

Next, they wanted to work on his speech. Here is how the conversation between Michelle the therapist (M) and Trevor (T) went:

M: Trevor, say yes

T: Ssssss

M: Say yes

T: Yes (Yes!)

M: Trevor, say no

T: Yes

M: No, I want you to say no

T: [A lot of thought] Shoes

M: Trevor, put your tongue behind your teeth

T: [Raises his hand]

M: Trevor, can you finish my sentences? Let's link these words together. Yes and?

T: Shoes

M: Ok, hot and?

T: Cold (Yay!)

M: Cold and?

T: Shoes

I forget what the medical term for this is but it's pretty common for traumatic brain injury patients to get stuck on certain words or actions if repeated too often. Once this happens, you have to drop what you were talking about or doing, and move on. Clearly, today he got stuck on the word "shoes," which I think is from him saying it in therapy so many times yesterday.

Okay, now back to the conversation:

M: Trevor, can we count from 1 to 20?

T: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 10, 20, [Thinks for a while] Shoes

M: Can we do days of the week now?

T: [Points to the "no" sad-face picture]

M: Can we just try?

T: [Points to the "yes" happy-face picture]

M: Okay, Sunday...

T: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 6, 6, shoes (666? Yikes.)

The therapists decided to drop conversation and go back to following commands. She put five objects out on the table and told Trevor to hand her the cup; he grabbed the ball and then handed her the comb. She told him to hand her the scrubber; he threw the sock and then handed her the CD.

Is he comprehending what we're saying? Your guess is as good as mine...

As you can see, during recreational rehab they worked on using a computer. We could give Trevor the benefit of the doubt and say that he struggled because he's used to Macs and not PCs, but I'm not so sure that's the case. She pulled up "Google" and told him to search something. It was pretty similar to what the 5-year-old I nanny for types when playing "Office." When she told him to type his name, he entered "Tarav WresaeDS." Although he got a few of the letters right, it was not super reassuring.

According to his "rehabists" (as he called them during the last rodeo), today's therapy was a great example of Trevor's cognitive mental fatigue. What does that mean? Well, I'm no doctor but I think it means that Trevor gets to a certain point where he just points to things or guesses because he's over it and wants therapy to be over with. Cleary I didn't get that out of the Meriam-Webster Medical Dictionary so if it's not a good enough definition for you, look it up yourself!

What else? He's been coughing a ton today. If this doesn't get better, they're going to have to start suctioning again, which nobody is looking forward to. The nurses say it's from drinking fluids down the wrong pipe. Payton argues that it's because of the chocolate shakes here. "They're so good I want them to go down both pipes."

And to end on a more positive note, the staff here at the U's Inpatient Rehab have been impressively awesome. They're all happy and nice, and seem to really love their jobs. Overall, they have definitely made up for the lack of visual essence of this unit. Yup, I love 'em!

Alright, so we have now been in the hospital for 3 weeks and I am officially over it. Trevor is progressing at the speed of light and everything is going really well, but it is absolutely draining nonetheless.

If this time is going to be at all comparable to the last recovery (which took about 2 months) then we're almost hitting the halfway point. That means I'm about to the point of my mid-recovery crisis. Looks like I'm going to have to buy a convertible. Well, maybe I'll steal a convertible since I've only been working about 5 hours per week during all this chaos.

It's ridiculously hard to concentrate on anything outside of the hospital right now. In fact, I should be writing a paper on ethics right now for one of my classes. Guess that means I'm unethical.

Okay, I am ranting. Moving on to Trevor's progress...

YESTERDAY 2/22

Trevor is now on a soft foods diet, which means no more puréed mush. Although for some reason, he hasn't been eating as well. Doesn't quite add up.

The occupational therapist came in. Trevor was able to repeat her and count from 1 to 3. She got out a puzzle of the United States and told him to point to every state he's been to. He went through and pointed to every single state. For the record, he has not been to every single state. We are pretty spoiled, but not that spoiled!

She gave Trevor a pencil and told him to write his name. He took it and tried to put it in his mouth (like everything else you hand him). She then took the pencil, put it in his left hand and told him to write his name after her. She wrote "Trevor"; he wrote "Saga". Saga is the outerwear company he snowboards for. Then she wrote on the paper "Olivia" and "Alyssa" and asked him which one was his sister. He grabbed the pencil and wrote "ssa." So, he either got the last half of my name right or he was trying to call me an ass. Pretty impressive for having 5 brain surgeries!

My mom, Walker and Payton all took Trevor on a wheelchair ride around the hospital. They went to the Huntsman Center Bistro, where Payton ordered a salad, Walker ordered a burrito, they ordered Trevor some apple juice and all sat down to enjoy their delicious snacks. Everything was going smooth until Trevor reached over, grabbed the bottle of ketchup and tried to drink it. Typical!

TODAY

Trevor played "Jenga" with the recreational therapist. He was surprisingly steady and controlled with that left hand. He kept trying to cheat by picking up the top piece, and then he would look up and smirk. When we were younger, I never wanted to play board games with him because he would always cheat! Yup, he's gonna be just fine.

An older lady with her therapy dog came in to see Trevor. She had him take off the dog's bandana and collar, which he was able to do with minimal help. She told him to brush the dog; he used the wrong side of the brush and stroked the dog's fur in circles, similar to how one brushes their teeth. Then she handed him some "Froot Loops" to feed the dog. He kept taking them and eating them himself. Or he would take one, pretend to give it to the dog and then eat it. He thought this was absolutely hilarious. The lady told him to put the collar back on the dog, so he tried several times to put the collar on his own head, but was confused as to why it wouldn't fit over his helmet. Oh, Trevor!

He played catch and bean bag basketball as well. After therapy, we had him wheel himself all the way back up to the room. It took about 5 times longer than it would have had we pushed him, but I was honestly impressed with his ability to get around with only his left limbs mobile. Although, he definitely could've been mistaken for being plastered with how much he was swerving and how many things he was running into...

Lastly, if anyone is trying to find a good cause to donate to, feel free to give to the "Get Alyssa a New MacBook Foundation." My hard drive is about to 'splode, which means this blog is about to crumble, as are any thoughts of turning all this chaos into a super successful book.

Here is some visual proof of Trevor's progression. If you have a weak stomach, you might not want to scroll down. Hopefully this will help you see how traumatic the accident was and how far he has truly come since then. Viewer's discretion advised. You can double-click the photos to enlarge.

February 2

This is the first time I saw him, about 20 minutes after bone flap removal surgery

February 3

February 4

Hooked up to about a million machines

February 5

Circulatory leg cuffs

Cerebrospinal fluid being drained out of his head

Day with the most swelling from surgery; high fever

Battle wounds

Bruises from the nurses pinching him

February 6

February 7

February 9

First day trying to sit him up

Trevor, Kevin Pearce, Dr. Ledyard and myself

February 11

First day trying to stand him up

February 12

Fell asleep before the previews were over

February 14

First day trying to get him to walk

First day on puréed food diet

February 16

Cerebrospinal fluid drain taken out

Feeding tube taken out

February 17

February 18

First wheelchair ride

Transfered from Neuro Acute Care to Inpatient Medical Rehab

Swelling gone down exponentially

February 19

I held up my phone and told Trevor to smile, and as you can see, he did. Well, as much of a smile as he can being unable to move that right side of his face. He is showing more and more emotion each and every day, which is super relieving.

Today is the first day I've actually believed that Trevor might actually be just fine after all of this commotion!

The occupational therapist came in today. He told Trevor to sit up because they were going to get dressed. Two main problems with this: He doesn't have clothes and he can't sit up.

The nutritionist brought Trevor his lunch. It was a salad and chunky vegetable and steak soup. One main problem with this: He can't eat real food.

The physical therapists are mainly working on balance with Trevor. Nothing particularly exciting to talk about.

Overall, huge success with the speech therapist, Emily, today.

First she had Trevor follow basic commands. This was kind of hit or miss. He could point to the majority of his body parts with her help. He could close his eyes and wiggle his fingers. But every time she would demonstrate what she wanted him to do, he would just grab her hand.

Then onto actual speech. Here is the dialogue between Emily (E) and Trevor (T):

E: Trevor, what is your birthday? Is your birthday May 8th?

T: Nope. (Wrong)

E: [Points to my mom] Trevor, is her name Tammie?

T: Nope. (Wrong)

E: [Points to my mom again] Trevor, is that Mom?

T: Nope. (Wrong)

E: Are you 22?

T: Uhhh.

E: [Holds up spoon] Trevor, what do you call this?

T: [Opens up his mouth]

E: [Holds up key] What is this?

T: [Tries to eat it]

E: No Trevor, what do you call this? A key?

T: Key. (Wahoooo!)

E: [Holds up sock] What is it, Trevor?

T: Key?

E: [Holds up flashlight] What is it, Trevor?

T: [Puts it in his mouth]

At this point, Trevor is immensely frustrated and keeps trying to push the therapist away. It's pretty much a wrestling match between the two. Trevor keeps pushing her and trying to force the objects into his mouth while she is trying with all of her strength to get them out of his mouth and keep him awake. Note: if you're going into speech therapy, go to the gym. Often. Traumatic brain injury patients are strong, stubborn, aggressive and relentless.

E: [Holds up tape] Trevor, what is it?

T: [Tries to eat it]

E: What is it called? Tape?

T: Tape. (Yessss!)

After this, he tried to eat a few more objects so she decided to move on to numbers.

E: 1, 2, 3, 4, what's next, Trevor?

T: Maybe. (Another new word!)

E: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, what comes next?

T: No.

She then asked him to say key again but that didn't happen.

Overall, I am stoked. New words of the day: Alright, Maybe, Key and Tape. All words said up to this point: Alright, Maybe, Key, Tape, Yep, Nope, Uhhh and What. This is starting to seem a whole lot like the last rodeo. Great success!

A note to all visitors: First off, we love you. And secondly, please try to come after 4:00 PM so you're not interrupting Trevor's chaotic therapy/nap schedule. Thank you and good night.

I'm sure none of you younger folks are familiar with this guy but he is Mark Spitz, a US Olympic swimmer from the 70's. Trevor's doctor, Dr. Speed (Dr. Speedo or "Stache" as we call him) looks exactly like this. He's the one who wants to put Trevor on every drug possible during this recovery.

We googled Trevor's other doctor, Dr. Richard Schmidt and what did we come up with? Oh, well Dr. Schmidt was charged for injecting his ex-wife with Hepatitis C and AIDS. Wrong Dr. Schmidt. Phew!!

All of the doctors and nurses keep thinking Trevor is really tall when they look at him. An average guess is about 6 foot. Weird because he's actually like 5' 8" or 5' 9".

Believe it or not, I'm actually a little jealous of Trevor right now. You see, as my weight goes up from eating my emotions and boredom, his weight goes down. We now weigh almost the exact same amount. I don't know who should be more embarrassed, but I'm guessing it's probably me.

YESTERDAY 2/19

Being in the rehab unit of the hospital, Trevor has 2 45-minute sessions of physical, speech and occupational therapy each day. In case you can't do the math yourself, that's 4.5 hours of rehab per day, which is a lot for sweet little sleepy Woo. He is absolutely exhausted.

He fell asleep while the physical therapists were trying to stretch him. He did, however, manage to stay awake to play a few minutes of catch with Walker during PT. He probably threw and caught the beanbag about 1/5 of the time. Maybe my whole family is pessimistic and has low hopes for Trevor, but we were all really impressed by this.

His occupational therapy session was a little bit less successful, not to his fault at all. The OT came in with nothing prepared to do with Trevor. He had the courage to tell my mom that everyone in this unit has experience with brain injuries except him; he is just here to learn. In my opinion, Trevor is an exceptionally lucky and serious case. Our goal is not for the therapists to learn from Trevor, but for Trevor to progress. Just sayin'!

[Photo]: During day 18 (which would be today) of the first rodeo, Trevor walked from his hospital room down to the rooms we were sleeping in. He crawled into the retro twin-sized hospital bed with me and then told me to get out. Later that day, Trevor asked Walker what they were going to do about insurance. Yup, this rodeo is on a whole new level of progression, ups, downs and obstacles.

TODAY

Today during physical therapy, he was able to hold himself sitting up for 30 seconds before falling over. Comparing this to the fact that he was walking and talking at this point last time is not so reassuring.

The one thing that is reassuring to me is his ability to take down apple juices, just like the first rodeo!

Trevor is no longer on 1:1 bedside aide. He has an infrared camera in his room and there is somebody constantly watching the monitor to make sure nothing happens. I have picked my nose at least 20 times today not thinking anybody was watching...

So, you saw the picture on the last post of Trevor's indented head, right? The one where it looks like you could eat a bowl of soup off of his dome? Well, today his head is completely normal shaped, like yours or mine. You'd think that'd be a good thing, but the fact that it swelled up that much is really scary to me. The nurse even admitted that it's rare for a bone flap removal to swell up that significantly during the 18th day after surgery. He has had a high temperature, red cheeks and the shivers all day. When the nurse told him to squeeze her hand if he was in pain, he squeezed the s%#! out of it. Yes, he's in pain!! I asked for the doctor to come look at it; the nurse said he would in the morning. I asked for a CT scan; the nurse said she would call for one in the morning. The morning, are you kidding me? That's a good 8 hours away, if not more. So right now I'm sitting here watching Trevor be miserable, twisting and turning and making moaning noises in bed while I'm freaking out, worried about what could possibly be wrong. Great!