Days 54 - 64– October 12 - 22...Chas' first post!

Days 54 - 64– October 12 - 22. I give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonderful deeds. Psalms 9:1.  I'm getting to the point where they are going to let me do my own blog post. I have a high standard to live up to…😉! The Lord not only saved me but has gone ahead and continued the healing process in me. Today was a big outing for me. Amy and Mikayla took me to my follow up appointment with the neurosurgeon, and others, including a CT scan. Everyone was happy and impressed with my brain's healing progress. Personally, I had never seen the "before surgery scan" so I was pretty shocked at all the damage that had been done. We were all excited by all the positive comments from the neurosurgery team. They were quite frank about the timeline for the next move. We were told that discussions for the repair, cranioplasty, don't normally even start until the patient is at least 3 months out from their initial injury. Thank God, we were just coming up on 8 weeks since my accident. The day was long but great. We got takeout from Coppertop and ate at a local park. Long day & I was spent. Barely made it back to Darrah's just north of Watertown. Their guest room saved me…after a couple hours…I was able to complete the "journey" to Alex-Bay.

I was originally too tired to even think of going but as it turned out, I had an exciting physical therapy on Tuesday Oct. 17 at River Hospital, only my third visit and I was doing well enough to have my therapist, who is wonderful by the way, move me from a walker to using two canes! Wow…still haven't got my canes but they will come soon! You can't imagine how much more, "back to normal" this makes me feel!

Wednesday Oct. 18, I got to meet some of the fine people at Lewis County Sheriff's office who helped me greatly on and since the day of my accident. I would like to list their names but won't for their safety and anonymity. In general terms, the LCSD team secured my carry pistol after my accident and held on to it during my treatment. My Father and I had a great time spending the morning together riding to the LCSD to pick up my property. Thanks to the LCSD team for their part in my story! It was great to get my property back but, more important was the few hours I got to spend with my Dad! Thanks for the ride Dad!  There was a lot packed into today. Once reconnected with Amy (she was in Rodman taking care of chores getting the house ready for winter) we had some errands to do. Being the noon hour, the most important item on the list was lunch…at Gram's Diner in Adams, of course! The Lord always gives us a little blessing in all we do! Ran into an acquaintance in Gram's when we went in. I've done business with him in the past. It was great to see a familiar face & have time to get caught up. One of the other, more important errands was to get my first haircut at Syd's Barber Shop.  Great people who have cut my hair for decades now. They have to be the best in the business! Sorry to go on about a day of simple errands but when it's your first day of errands in 8 weeks you tend to get excited about it…LOL!

On Thursday Oct. 19, we discovered in my patient portal that they had schedule my cranioplasty for the day after Thanksgiving. I must give Scotty credit for his quick wit…his first comment was, "Did you find a good Black Friday Deal?" Thank God because we were thinking it may be after Christmas! For Thanksgiving, we can be thankful that my rebuilding / recovery continues in God's timing! This item needs continued prayer…as the two concerns with this surgery (Cranioplasty) are bleeding and infection. Both of which may require a "re-do"…which is not something any of us wants…especially me!

Friday Oct. 20, More success and good news at Physical Therapy. My therapist said I could toss another cane…so now I'm down to one cane. Of course, we're all about common sense and avoiding any setbacks so we will continue using the walker and wheelchair as the situation warrants…if I'm very tired or unsteady for some reason!

Sunday Oct. 22, My cousins Steven & Beva were in town from Maine and to Steve's surprise, Beva and sister Benda conspired to make a 70^th birthday party at my daughter & son in law's house. An even bigger surprise was that I felt well enough to stop in for a short visit. We were all very happy to have the chance to see each other…Thank the Lord!

As you continue to pray for the cranioplasty and continued healing, also include therapies we have not gotten into yet…speech, occupational therapy or orthopedic consult.

I'm going to close out the coverage of this week & a half by thanking my savior Jesus Christ. You can't deny, He put all the right players in all the right places to have a part in saving my life, from EMS to Medivac Chopper to the Neurosurgery team to all the Drs. Nurses, Therapist, RNs. LPNs. CNAs and all I didn't mention! Also, a thanks to my family, extended family, friends, coworkers, etc. for the hand they had in this story that has so changed my life, whether with my health care, jobs around the house or finances. Many thanks to Chuck Sweet who has been like a brother to me for many years…he was the only one with me that day so I can only imagine that he's the one responsible for saving my life. Without him, I don't know that anyone would have been there to put all the other players into action. The visits, cards, texts & phone calls have gone a long way to help my healing process. I cannot say enough thanks to my wife, daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren.

Psalms 115:1 – Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.