September 10, 2007

• Monday, September 10, 2007

  I laid awake this morning after the 8 hours of rest my entire family forced on me (as well the meds prescribed by Dr John Cecil—we love him) and tried to stay on task by finding four steps forward.  And I found them!  First, at 11 PM last evening with GREAT respiratory readings and Ashley by her side, Hillary was taken off the ventilator.  WHAT a step forward and one we never thought would come this soon.  Secondly, she did have a very successful surgery on her elbow.  Third, she became “more responsive” with movement of fingers to commands, though the response is delayed.  The movements are so slow and minimal it is often difficult to determine whether reflex or response.  However, the more time you spend with Hillary the more you begin to decipher the two. 

  While our men may not “get it” when they read the fourth step forward, the women most certainly will.  Thanks to the loving care of Erica, Hillary had an evening at the spa with Bath and Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossoms topped off with a final coat of cherry red on her toes.  It was WONDERFUL!  Erica brought all of this to Hillary from her own girly collection at home.  What an ANGEL!  We love you Erica and all the Coltharp women can’t wait to have champagne and pedicures with you soon. And we will let you and Hillary pick the day.

  The spa in Trauma Center room #31 may be the reason we are all better able to handle the step backwards of extremely high blood pressure and fever….most of which is caused by “brain storms” which are the result of her trauma from the accident. After shots and repeated meds to reduce her BP crises, Caregiver/DJ Drew finally came in and said, ”Hillary….I don’t like to lose…and you are beating me!  I am not going home until we get the BP down.” And Drew brought in that rolling trauma tracking system/music sound and production system and went to war.  Part of his combat included more R&B all the while taking readings and fine tuning her delivery of meds and care.  No changes.  Finally he moved her into a place very appropriate to Nashville by way of Rascal Flatts “What Hurts the Most” and she began to settle down.  Within minutes her blood pressure started to hit near normal readings.  Drew said, “Hillary why didn’t you tell me you wanted Country tonight?  Wow….she is a girl who really likes to mix it up, isn’t she?!?!?”   Thank you Drew and Erica and Sarah and Darla (who has the cutest hair do EVER and one we have goaled for Hillary soon)  And you too, Anthony!  (Hillary’s Angels in Vandy posted to blog pics)

  As Paul shared, the clinical trial to fight Hillary’s pneumonia appears to be successful and we thank God and Judy Jenkins, RN MSN, for the blessing.  Judy was so cute when she came in yesterday morning to check on how things were going:  She said she had been to her stylist the evening before and he had wanted to make a slight change in her style.  Judy said the first thing she thought was “What would Hillary do?”  We had such a happy laugh and connection with her and those moments just continue every day.

  But so do the ones where I look at my baby girl and wish I had every chance back when she was little and wanted to hang on me constantly for hugs no matter what I was doing or where we were. If only she could hang on me now…I would never say, “Honey thank you for that hug and now Mommy has to go do this right now.”  I’d say hang on for dear life my sweet daughter and I will never let go. I KNOW she isn’t going to let go of all of us and you either….NEVER!

  Thank you for every prayer!  We feel you connected to us and it is important beyond any way we can describe. We wish we could speak to everyone of you and always respond back by email, but it is impossible right now.  We whisper your names and give her every kiss you send.

  –Shawn

  • 1:37 pm
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