Mother Knows Best

According to my mom....

"Here are the facts:

We are living in a hell hole pleasantly known as University of Utah Medical Center Rehabilitation Room Number 2613. People all around us have recently been told their lives will never be the same. Families are devastated. We constantly see people carrying clear bags and tanks of their urine, blood, spinal and/or gastric fluids. The halls smell like sewage. The patients cry in their rooms at night while the nursing staff laughs as they enjoy their daily lives. People can’t wipe their own noses or control their drool. This place looks and feels and smells and sounds disgusting.

Having said that, we would like you to come and visit. We would like you to bring happy thoughts and stories that enlighten our day. We want you to bring in your smile and tell exciting stories about what your dog did yesterday or show us an article about Lynsey Lohan”s jewelry theft, etc. or bring in a game that doesn’t take a lot of time or concentration or skill but is not degrading and elementary.

What we don’t want you to do is:

Say “I bet you are getting sick of being with your family.” Unless you have the ability to dedicate more that 23.5 hours of your time daily to Trevor’s care, you might want to do everything you can to convince Trevor he is the luckiest man on Earth to have such a fantastic family. Unfortunately, whether you understand it or not, you need to be completely aware that Trevor’s family is imperative. When you give Trevor the slightest inclination that his family is boring, you push him closer to depression and suicide. Yep, I said it. I am not stupid, I know I am not more fun than Trevor’s friends but I guarantee there is not one friend out of all the friends I see on facebook that has the time to dedicate to even just the education of how to manage our situation.

For instance:

Even to take Trevor on a wheelchair ride around the hospital or stay with him while you encourage me to “go get some fresh air” you need to know that Trevor cannot excuse himself to go to the bathroom. Seriously, let’s put just that one simple task into the equation. Trevor cannot communicate. He cannot tell you “I have to go to the bathroom” and Trevor cannot go by himself. He cannot open the door, he cannot stand up, he cannot blah, blah, blah. He cannot tell his limbs what he wants them to do. The disturbing predicament is that every time a friend wants to “help” me or Trevor, I have to feel uncomfortable and discuss things that I shouldn’t have to discuss with people I barely know. Think of it this way: Were you close enough with Trevor, before his injury, to have him wipe your ass? If not, please understand why it is not “help” to take him away from his family.

What we don’t want you to say:

We cannot encourage Trevor to get back to snowboarding, or farming, or snowmobiling, or hanging with his friends. Trevor is going to have to change his way of life drastically. People with spinal cord injuries can get back on their saddles. In fact, those people are encouraged to. There are all kinds of equipment that those people can use to do as much as they can…you commonly see those people climbing Mount Everest. Trevor’s injury is not to his body. It is to his brain. Once again, I will repeat for this injury what I said after the last, Trevor cannot have caffeine, nicotine, sleep deprivation, flashing lights, alcohol, and jolting of his head. It is that simple. If those factors weren’t in play on February 2nd, I bet we would not be sitting in Room 2613 on March 17th!"