People have been asking us to do a blog since Terry was injured. I have been putting it off. I have a hard time putting in writing what has happened. Putting it in writing somehow makes it more real to me. I have honestly been in a form of "survival mode" for the past 10 months. We have given it a lot of thought. How can we cover so much time, so the events would make sense in a logical order to all the people who want to hear the story? We decided to just get started. We are going to give a history of the events that have brought us to today. Then we will try to keep you up to date after that. Here we go...

January 2006 Terry was in an automobile accident. Terry was in the left hand turn lane and had a green light. Some "nice folks" decided to let a lady pull out from a parking lot. (in between cars-you know what we mean?) Anyhow she pulled out and hit Terry pretty much head on. Terry spent a few days in the hospital in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit for an injury to the neck. He had pain shooting down from his neck into his arm causing three of his fingers to go numb. (pinkie, ring and middle fingers). After a few days he came home and spent the following months trying to see if he could tolerated the pain, or if maybe it would get better. He decided to take the wait and see approuch. He went through physical therapy, pain medicine and many ice packs, but the pain wouldn't go away. After many months it started to really affect Terry. When you are in pain for so long it starts to really wear on you. People would ask me "whats wrong with Terry?" You could see the affect of the pain on his face. We tried everything but he wasn't getting better. At this point Terry was a walking man who had bad pain and numbness in his neck and arm. He continued to see the doctor who cared for him since the auto accident. Approximately February 2007 we decided to have the outpatient surgery to relieve the pain and pressure.


March 14, 2007 (Wednesday) Terry walked into the hospital for "outpatient surgery". The surgery was in the morning and we thought we would be home later that day. We had gotten chicken out of the freezer that we were going to make for dinner. The doctor had told Terry he should be able to help make dinner. We took the day off from work and planned on being back to work by Friday. Terry felt like he was going in for something similar to a dentist visit. We didn't even tell very many people about the surgery because we felt it was "going to be a very simple (routine) procedure". The surgery was suppose to relieve the neck and arm pain and numbness that was constant. We were told if the surgery was a complete failure, Terry would still have the same pain. We went through the admissions and then I said good-bye and they took Terry off to surgery. I waited in the outpatient surgery lounge. I don't remember how much time went by, I wasn't watching the clock. I was paged to go talk to the doctor. When I spoke to the doctor in one of the private consultation rooms he started talking about the "procedure". I was expecting to hear "you'll be going home in a little bit" but he was talking a different story. He said "something went wrong" and "he had to do a spinal cord repair" and "Terry's legs are numb". My head went tilt, really I felt my head tilt to the side. Nothing had ever been said about work being done on his spinal cord. Before the surgery I would try to look stuff up on the internet so we could maybe have a better understanding of what is going on. Nothing had been mentioned about working on the spinal cord. I asked "how long does that last? Will we be here over night?" He said "you don't understand Gloria, I am quite concerned, you can't see Terry right now we have to send him for an emergency MRI" and they will get back with me in a little bit. I was to go back to the waiting room. I went back to where I had been sitting. I wanted to be near the same people I had been talking to that morning (they were very nice). I called Nicole (our oldest daughter) and Sue (my sister). I started to shake and cry. I couldn't understand what was happening. Nicole and Sue arrived at the hospital so I wasn't alone anymore. The doctor and his nurse came out much later and told us that one of three things had happened. Terry had a bruised spinal cord, or he had swelling of the spinal cord or he had a stroke in his spinal cord. They had to take very good care of him because the next 24-48 hours were very important. Later that day they let me see Terry. He was pretty much out of it (drugged). I tried to wake him up but he didn't feel me touching him. When he did open his eyes I asked him about his legs feeling numb? He whispered "Gloria I can't feel anything from my chest down. " Terry remembers the surgeon and his head nurse waking him up and then they both started rubbing a leg, one on the right -one on the left, and saying "can you feel this?" He replied no. The next thing he remembers is me being in his room and him having a Popsicle. Like I said Terry was pretty much out of it, they had him medicated so he just slept. I will have to tell most of the story at this point but you will hear from Terry again later.
At this time we were still in the recovery area. Visitors were not allowed back there but they told me I could sit with Terry. I would try touching his legs (while he was asleep) and touching his stomach and he wouldn't respond. If I rubbed his arm or face he would wake up a little bit. I started to watch what was going on around us. I couldn't understand why the nurse taking care of Terry at this point would be working with a head cold. Every time she came in to check on Terry her eyes would turn red and her nose would appear to run. She looked like she was about to cry. So I watched her when she went to the other areas and she seemed okay. That made me believe she was an the verge of tears when she came into Terry's room. Also when the doctor and his nurse would talk to me they would hold me by the arm as if I was going to fall or collapse. Pretty scary stuff. As I looked around in this area of the hospital I noticed someone had hung a drawing of a human outline that explained spinal cord injuries and the injury level. More about that later.
By late Wednesday night Terry had been moved to the Neuro ICU. He was there for the next few days. I stayed with him. I pulled a chair over by his bed and would rub his forehead round the clock. (unless I was taking one of my many walks down the hall to cry). I didn't want Terry to see how scared I was. I told him "Everything will be alright". At this time he was not able to move or feel anything from the nipple line down (upper chest). The next week was all a blur. It felt like one very, long bad day. A nightmare! I couldn't eat or sleep. The nurse in NICU told us to prepare ourselves, this is how life is going to be. The doctor told me to try and get some rest I looked terrible and he didn't want anything bad to happen to me. I just wanted to stay right next to Terry and keep one hand on him. They had him on medicine to raise his blood pressure so the area of injury wouldn't go higher. (he had many bags of medicine and injections going into his body).

I will post more later--I need to take a break from this.

Gloria (& Terry)