Aug 13 - visiting Hamid

We headed out a little before noon, stopping at a Ruby Tuesday's somewhere on I83 for lunch.  The rehab hospital is a confusing mess of buildings in Baltimore but eventually we found our way to his room.

Shab showed us some of the pictures that she has of x-rays of his back ... he's basically been re-assembled with the lower several vertebrae all supported in place by flexible titanium joints.  It's quite amazing what they can do ... but horrific that they had to do it.  His wrist isn't in a cast, because the bolts are all external; why that is, I don't know.  That contraption is about 9-10 inches long with several pins going into the flesh bolting everything in place.  That stays in place for six weeks.  He also has a neck brace because the C7 vertebrae is cracked.  That will heal on its own.

He has several areas without feeling but the most concerning is from the hip to the knee, left leg.  They expect him to be able to walk but he doesn't have enough motor control and/or strength just yet.  It may just be a matter of strength, since cutting all those abdominal and back muscles takes a while to heal.

He's only supposed to be in the rehab hospital for a couple of weeks.  Their goal is to get him mobile on his own, up and to the bathroom, that sort of thing.  After that, physiotherapy begins.  Right now, there's a second bed in the room for Shab.   Once out of rehab, he will likely go to his apartment in MD and then, with the contraption off his wrist, they'll probably go to Florida.

They were both very emotional but controlled.  This is one of those situations where you have to examine your definition of lucky ... lucky to not be paralyzed; unlucky to have had the accident in the first place.  We said a prayer together for complete and speedy recovery.

Traffic wasn't great coming back.  Sandy had originally figured that we'd be back in time to take Emma to her cheerleading practice but as we were going to be late for that; Sara took her while Jeffrey tended Zoe.  It started at 6:30 -- we got there around 6:40 -- and it lasted until 7:30.  In the meantime, Jeffrey had planned a quick fix dinner -- some pizza and bowtie noodles with sauce.

Another day was done.   Onward.