Day 182 | MARCH 11, 2022

Good evening, Friends, today is day 182 of our amazing new life!

Today I called Charlie at 8 am, she had asked me for this to be a daily wakeup call 🙂, shortly after she called back and she watched baby Julien play for a good 20 minutes and she also got to say hello to London before he went to school.

I can’t even imagine how much she is wishing to be home with her boys! Oh God please comfort her mommy heart.

This morning I saw the results of her blood work, and I had few concerns, so I emailed her Rehab doctor and the team, and they gracefully set up meetings with the Dietitian and the PT and OT teams.

I arrived at SAI around 2:18, just 3 minutes late for my first meeting with the Dietitian, she was very nice and open to my questions, I just wanted to be sure that Charlie is receiving the absolute best nutrition while in rehab, one of my suggestions was to instead of Charlie having 3 large meals, she would benefit from 5 smaller meals/ snack, to which they agree, so they will introduce 2 highly protein snacks to her daily meals.

The second meeting with OT and PT was very helpful, they gave me a lot of information and insight about Charlie’s mobility, or lack of.

I am now understanding what Charlie is going through, it is a lot to take in, the fact that her skin still healing, and her knees being unable to bend, causes a lot of issues for her mobility, they are adapting a wheelchair, so she can ride it, with her legs straightened, we now need to think about a custom shower chair, I am still so surprised that she is not able to bend her knees, I guess that I never thought of it, since she is always in bed , I never realized that she couldn’t bend her knees.

We are waiting on a consultation with an orthopedic surgeon, to hear his opinion about the best plan for her knees. At this time, there are a lot of unknowns.

I had to ask a very hard question to her PT, and I will be honest, I asked but I was afraid of the answer.

I asked, now that you had 11 days with Charlie, do you think she will be able to walk again?

He looked at me and said, normally I have a very politically correct response to this question, because of the so many variants, but for Charlie, I can say with confidence that she will walk again, it is not going to be easy, it will take a lot of therapy and years, 2 to 3 years, before she may be able to walk.

That was hard to hear, 3 years is a long time to be on a wheelchair, I am still processing this information, but I also remember that I was told that Charlie would be at the hospital for at least 12 months and she left shy of 6 months, so I am going to convince myself that she can do it again! Cut that time in half? Maybe we will be looking at 18 months instead of 3 years? I know that God will give Charlie the strength to overcome this very difficult phase of her recovery, but it is not easy.

I knew this would be difficult, but to be honest it is harder than I imagined, it is very mentally demanding for me, and for Charlie is twice as hard, mentally and physically!

Charlie continues to receive your amazing gifts and Cards! I have to tell you this, your cards are so inspirational to me, your words of support are touching to both of us!

Wow! I am so amazed by how many people have already signed up to the blog! As of now, almost 500 of you have signed up!!

I would love to have 1k of you there by Sunday!

I will continue to post here as usual, but I will be posting more pictures at the blog, so you have more content in there.

Thank you for your continued love, support and prayers, we need it more than ever, so many challenges ahead.

May God Bless You!

André

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