"Email from Dr. Doherty" Results of ENT visit

03-15-2009
0630 Hours


I recieved the following email from Dr. Doherty regarding Dar's recent visit to the ENT specialist Dr. Shapiro.




hi there. sorry about seeing you so late on wednesday night. it was an extremely busy day (and night for that matter since i was up all night on call).however, for dar - it was a great week and there was lots of progress to document in my notes on thursday! also, the ent eval was done by dr. shapiro. he and i spoke on the phone both before and after his eval. he didn't see anything problematic at all. per dr. shapiro's recommendation, we will place a trach type called fenestrated (has little holes to breath through on the inside of the tube) and see if she has an easier time with trach plugging. this will be done early this coming week. if she does well with this, we will likely subsequently move to a trach button. possibly within one week.meaning - it is time to bring the bipap machine in to the hospital. please put her name all over it. if there is anything specific about her machine, like where to fill with water and how much) please print this out and tape these instructions to the machine. every machine is a bit different and we want to use hers according to proper specifications. once a button is placed, the bipap machinie will need to be used every night.take care and have a great weekend. dr. waters will be back on monday and i will return on wednesday.dr. d



See you Wednesday.With Dar now, she is sharp as a tack, memory is very very sharp, can do simple math, add , sub. Remembers I was a cop, more important she remembers I was on horseback not a cruiser. She is really, really sharp. It is so exciting; you are the best doc thank you soooo much for believing in Dar. Danny
Danny Mardilla

Thats the latest at this point folks, it has been another super weekend, Raining at the present time, I will be seeing Dar for awhile and headed home during daylight hours. Probably talk to you all again from the hospital, just thought this might be a treat with your coffee this morning. Have a great day everyone, talk a little later.

Dar/Danny/Mav

" ENT visit on Thursday, "All good in the Hood"

03-14-2009
1036 Hours

Arrived this morning to find that Dar had already been seen by Occupational Therapy. Worked her range of motion, arms and legs.

Therapist told me that Dar continues to be 100 per cent when asked yes or no questions

Dar was very glad to see me and was looking for her good morning kiss. Very happy and answered all my questions correctly. Even got a little b ossy when I ased her if I could step out to use the restroom, put those lips together and was not about to say yes. Told her I was going to wet my britches if she did'nt say yes, still kept those lips together, just put a smile on her face. Little brat. It is totally amazing to see the progress in the last week to 10 days. Totally awesome.

Dar's visit to the ENT showed that everything is normal, now what that means at this point I do not know as yet. Both doctors Waters and Doherty are not here today. I would imagine when I return on Wednesday we will begin putting a plan together

The weather is is cool and cloudy, Dar wants to go outside so I am going to bundle her up and take her for a walk. Talk to you all later today, hope you enjoy the good news as much as I enjoy bringing it to you. Love to all of you from both Dar and I

Dar/Danny/Mav

" Dar continues to scale hurdles"

03-11-2009
12:00 hours

Just a quick little update to tell you that Dar continues to scale hurdles.

I arrived this morning to find Dar awake and ready to go to work.We went thru our custmary good mornings and then it was time to get down to business.

I began by telling her that I was going to ask some questions and if the answer was yes I wanted her to open her mouth and stick out her tongue. Dar answered correctly to her name, was she married, is Danny your husband, is your dogs name Maverick and does she work for Walmart. We are now going to be able to build on this so that we can communicate with her. Dar was even asked by her case manager if Fred was her husband. Dar did not respond. I can't wait to show Dr D and Dr. Waters. Several of her therapists were able to see Dars new found talent. Imagine mine and the staffs excitement today.

Dar goes on a field trip tomorrow afternoon to see an ENT doctor to see if she is getting close to having the "trach" removed.

In addition to her new way of communicating she is saying "hi" and "awh" and trying to say "bye".If the trach comes out soon, how cool will that be.

Well the girls should be done with Dar's dew so I am going to head back. She will probably be sleeping but I wanted to take a moment to fill you in, sorry no picture at this time but this post is being done on the blackberry. I will edit later. Thank you all for your continued prayers. Talk later

Danny

" DAR SCALES MAJOR HURDLE YESTERDAY, 03-04-2009"

03-05-2009

1700 hours

Usually I do not participate in these type emails, but his one is different.

For Darlene and I, would you please take a moment to read this email and pass it on. Even if you don't, thank you for reading it and thank you for praying for Darlene and I. Think about the message as you go about your busy schedules.

Dar has made tremendous strides since last Saturday and will continue to.

Dar now moves her toes, feet and the fingers on her left hand all upon request. This all happened yesterday when Dr. Doherty did her evaluation about 7:00 pm. Dar is also opening and closing her mouth for kisses each and every time you ask. Yesterday was another fabulous day for Dar and all of us in her family. None of this would be possible without the help of God and the faithfull and continuing prayers of people like you. I've said it before, words will never be enough to show how much each and everyone of you mean to me. You could not contain the excitement on Dr. D and myself. It was a glorious, glourious day.

Below is our request, please take the time to read and if you are so moved, pass it on. If not, continue to pray for Dar's Recovery. I will be heading back down again on Saturday morning.

THE BRICK

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down

when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door!
He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver
then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against

a parked car shouting, 'What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?' The young boy was apologetic. 'Please, mister...please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do,' He pleaded. 'I threw the brick because no one else would stop...' With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. 'It's my brother,' he said, 'he rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up.'

Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, 'Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me.'

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. 'Thank you and may God bless you,' the grateful child told the stranger. Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home.

It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: 'Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!' God whispers in our souls and speaks to our hearts. Sometimes when we don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at us. It's our choice to listen or not.

Thought for the Day:

If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.

If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it.

He sends you flowers every spring.

He sends you a sunrise every morning Face it, friend - He is crazy about you!

Send this to every 'beautiful person' you wish to bless.

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow,sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

Read this line very slowly and let it sink in...

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.

Pass this message to seven people except you and me.

We love you all and each of you have a special place in our hearts, thank you so much for your support.

Love,

Dar/Danny

Ps, just do a "copy/paste" of the "Brick" and put it in an email to your friends and loved ones.God bless all.

Talk to you again soon, Danny

"Saturday was a great day for Dar"

03-01-2009

1314 hours

To the left is a picture of Dar's mom and dad at Lake Tahoe celebrating her dads 70th birthday. Was a great day on the lake and dad even para-sailed. They all had a great day.

Well, its been a few days since my last post and much has happened.

Dar, continues to progress and we had a totally awesome day Saturday. When I arrived she was sleeping but when I asked her to wake she was as always glad to hear my voice.

I brought her new clothes and did'nt do the math quite right between visits. I was one change of clothes short between visits. So, while she was being dressed for the day I went to the laundra mat and washed up all of her clothes. When I returned she was already up in her chair and off to therapy. I found her in the gym with her O/T therapist. Linda told me that Dar had a good session but slept thru the whole thing and never even gave a smile. Well, we could not have that so I asked Dar to wake and give us a smile. She did, and so started a great day of laughter and fun. We spent over an hour outside with her new blanket keeping her warm and enjoying the outdoors. She even got to see Maverick, talk about excited. I'm not sure who was more. It was really fun to see Dar laugh and have a good time.

As the sun disappeared late in the morning we moved into the lobby of the hospital. We sat by the windows and chatted and talked and Dar laughed alot. We visited with Chris froim the hospital and he got to see first hand some of Dar's progress. Chris got her to laugh and smile some too. We chatted about hospital stuff and Dar for quite awile and it was good to chat with Chris.

One of the things that I learned that Dar started doing this week was when Dr. Waters was with her Dar appeared to be in discomfort. Dr. Waters asked Dar to close her mouth and take a deep breath and breath thru her nose. Dar did as asked. Now you may think this is no big thing but this is huge. This was the first time Dar has followed a specific command and completed the task. She did this on Wednesday.I am told that she did this twice. This is HUGE

Well, I decided to see if Dar could continue doing this while I was with her. I am proud to say that Dar did the same thing for me several times while we were on our little outting. But wait, it gets better. Dar followed my request on several occasions while we were out and about, but while the day continued I would ask her to close her mouth and put her lips together. By the end of the day she was closing EVERY time I asked. Each time she did it I said "thank you very much". Keep in mind I still have this nasty cold so I was wearing a mask and could not give her kisses so we made the best of the situation with "thank you". It was kinda funny when she would close her mouth she was not in pain or anything, she just had her mouth open. In fact Dar did not have any pain or pain medication all day. I thought she had been given some while I was doing laundry, I was wrong, she got wisked away to therapy to quick and then I took her outside.

Our little funny about her mouth closing was that when I asked her to close her mouth and put her lips together she would really put them together like she was going to say the letter "P", plus she would have this little grin on her face. Looked like she was just wating for me to give her a kiss, thats what I would do before the cold. It was such a great day. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I was to see her close her mouth when asked , but to do it all day is fabulous.

Well the fun did not stop there. You remember me telling you that Dr. Doherty had a plan to relieve Dar's wrist and finger pain. Now I can share with you what that was.

Friday Dar started Botox injections in her hand and wrists. If you take the time to do a little research you will find that these injections do great things for stroke patients, cerebal palsey and even migrain headaches.

It takes about 14 days to begin seeing the rewards of the injections but it will allow the therapists to work with her range of motion and give the brain time to rewire itself. We are trying to avoid the brain thinking that a closed turned in hand is not the normal way of things. The injections will relax the muscles and tendons so that the therapists can do their thing.

I am excited to see what will happen when the pain goes away and the brain is not focused on that area as it has been lately.

It still gets better. Dr. Doherty emaild me as we often do and told me that Dar continues to focalize with her eyes and moving her head from left to right more also.

As you can well imagine by now every little thing that Dar does now I am emailing Dr. Doherty, Well, I am not through yet. After Dar got put back to bed about 2:00 in the afternoon, (they had to come find us), she got her first bit of pain medication. Had some blood work done and hooked back up to her dinner.

Adrianna and Grizelda, (sisters) washed Dar's hair while she was still in her chair and Sue from the salon is going to take a bunch of beauty products to the girls on Monday. Sue has been such a sweetheart, she cares a great deal. Thank you Sue.

Well, I decided to see if I could get Dar to follow a different command. I asked her to open her mouth and say "awh" Guess what, she did it. Next I asked her to close her mouth and put her lips together, guess what she did it,. I asked her to do this 3 times and she did it all three times. I got so excited that I ran out in the hall and got our neighbor John"s mom to come to the room so I could have a witness. John's mom came over and Dar repeated the drill 3 more times. Each time ending with her lips together and a little smirk on her face. It was sooooooo totally awesome. Yesterday was such a great day. I hope you can feel as excited to read this as I was to be a part of it.

Oh, and by the way, I emailed Dr. Doherty right away, you think. :)

I decided that knowing it was going to be a nasty rain day on Sunday and I have this nasty cold, I did not want to push my luck giving Dar a cold. I left to come home late Saturday and pay the bills, do wash at home, give Maverick a bath, and keep things up on the home front. We got home late and I actually slept till 6:45 this morning. Since then Mav and I have been busy taking care of business.

I called the hospital a few minutes ago and Dar was doing fine and resting.

I have been thinking about emailing Dr. D and asking her if it might not be a good thing to have me come down once during the week on therapy day to work with Dar also. It seems that I get her to do more things on a regular basis than some of the therapists.

Might be a good thing, sepecially in the next couple of weeks.

Well readers, I hope I have put a smile on your face "cuz" you could not wipe mine off. YESTERDAY WAS A GREAT DAY, did you hear that, YESTERDAY WAS A GREAT DAY.

Talk to you all soon, God bless you all, we love ya

Dar/Danny/Mav

"Hey Yackky, Where is them fish?"

02-24-2009

1654 hours

Yep, I've been puttin up with these kinda pranks, jokes and all around funnies for more than 30 years from my very good buddy Elby. Grade school, Jr. High and High School were no exceptions. Still the best of friends and still making each other laugh.Thanks Elby. I told him the other day I ran accross a photo that I thought I might include on the blog. Well, here he is always good for a laugh. Love ya buddy. This was taken last year on the lake bass fishin. Leave it to him to have a disguise in his tackle box.

Well, Sunday did not start off on a very good foot. When Mav and I got to the motel (sat) I must have lowered my window a bit and when I jumped in the truck in the pouring rain on Sunday morning yep, you guessed it, I got soaked to the skin. My seat was absolutley drenched. My backrest was soaked, floormats were soaked the whole nine yards. Thankfully I had a couple of extra britches and a spare jacket to seperate me from the flood.

Well, we got through the day and even decided to leave for home a little earlier than planned due to the rain that fell all day. Decided to get back home in the daylight instead of the late hours I usually get in.

When we left on Sunday, Dar was sleeping peacefully and getting some much needed rest.

Dr. Waters called me today and advised me that Dar started a 5-7 day round of antibiotics for a urinary infection. Thus the reason for the somewhat elevated WBC count.

Dr. Doherty and I will most likely be speaking tomorrow about her plan of attack to ease Dar's muscle pain in her wrists and fingers. I have a general idea of her plan and will give you the jest of it after Dr. D and I have spoken. Please stay tuned.

I hope you all understand that it has become more difficult to gather information now that our "Eyes" have moved to Stanford. I will, to the best of my ability keep you as informed as possible. Even when I call the 3 times a day that I call, I don't get a whole lot of information. I get the basics of how she is doing at that particular time of the day. I usually know the nurse to whom I am talking to but on some occasions I get a new one that does not recognize me as Dar's husband. Lends for scattered conversation at times.

As much as Sunday morning was a bummer, yesterday I started coming down with some nasty cold that is going around. I suffered through work yesterday but came home for a few hours today and took a nap before going back this afternoon. I have to whip this thing before the weekend. Not about to take Dar something she does not need.

My sister Lorrie ran out to the Wally World the other day and picked up 4 more tops for Dar that will allow me to bring 6 new sets of clothes to her on the weekends and do laundry during the week. Saturday I went to the laundra mat and washed her clothes and got her squared away for the week.

By the by, the new outfit that was in the drawer was cute, was that from mom and dad or sister Diane?

Well, again I apologize for the somewhat vague updates but I assure you I will continue to do my best to keep you all up to speed.

Rest assured, Dar is making progress and as I am often times reminded by others and even the doctors, this is going to be a marathon. Very slow, Dar has come a very long way from where she was two months ago, yes I said two months ago yesterday. Dar is a fighter, always has been. Please continue to keep those prayers for her going, in addition pray for her family, mom,dad, Christine/Gary and the boys, Diane and Roger, they are struggling with this new format too. This is hard for all of us.

Well, hopefully I will learn more tomorrow. I will be calling down for my evening check-in shortly, if anything new pops up I will let you all know.

Thank you all for your prayers and support,

Dar/Danny

"Something my mom started, Darlene finished"

02-21-209

1500 hours

In Feburary 2005 my mom passed away and through my sister Lorrrie, Darlene was passed the project mom had been working on at the time of her passing. Lorrie felt that she did not have the skills to take on such a monumental task.Well Darlene set out to complete mom's project with a fury that is only Darlene. She basically worked on this tapestry non stop. Virtually every waking spare moment she had Dar was working on this elegant creation. The extrordinary part of this story is that Dar only had a picture and the material to complete the project. No guide, no stitch guide to follow, only a picture and a template of what mom had already completed. I am not even really sure how long Dar worked on this but I am sure Lorrie will let me know. I do know this, Dar worked countless hours, days, weeks and if memory serves months to complete mom's creation. When all was said and done it turned out to be a masterpiece.

This is just a small example of how creative Dar is. Even when we were out in the boat, I would be in front fishing and she was in the back on the pedestal chair painting, knitting or doing some kind of stitchery. Totally having fun, enjoying what she was doing and watching me catch bass. Of course Mr. Awesome was always along for the ride.

Quite the creator of beauty and always thinking of others.

Well some good news tonight, Darlene has gained 13 lbs since she arrived at Kentfield. I was totally happy to hear that piece of good news.

Today during her therapy she was sitting on the edge of the bed totally supporting her head and using her neck muscles very well. When I came in the room this morning she was wide awake and when I said good morning to her she put a big smile on. She was glad to see me and it showed. The nurses got her dressed and we went outside with her new quilt for a little while. I think she enjoyed the fresh air. We went back into the lobby for awhile before her second round of therapy.

As Dar regains her muscle tone one of the things that I have noticed is that she has some definate pain in certain plases. Wrists, hands, fingers and legs are the most visible. Dr. Doherty has a plan of attack that she will be sharing with me in the next day or two. In the meantime the nurses give her a little bit of pain medication so that Dar can relax and sleep.

Dr. Waters told me that she noticed something the other day that Dar had not done before. When Dr. Waters tickled the bottoms of Dar's feet, she would pull them away very aggresivley. Doc was excited about that.

I am really glad that Dar is back in Unit 1. All of the nursing staff in that unit are very good to her and look after her very well. Last night Diana said it was about time to rotate out the Kenny G. music and put in some country. I took another Ipod with country music on it for the daytime and then they can switch when it is time to go to sleep.

I have not seen Dar since last Friday and I was very impressed with the progresss she has made. I just wish she did not hurt so much when it comes to her muscles. I know that the doctors will be addressing this soon.

Well I am going to turn in and see about getting some sleep, the rains are supposed to hit pretty hard here tonight and I do not cherish the drive home in the pouring rain at night so I will probably leave about 3:00 pm tomorrow. At least get back to familiar roads while it is still daylight. Hopefully I will be able to write from the hospital tomorrow. Today it just did not work out. Sleep well my friends, please pray that Dar's muscular discomfort will subside and the pain will leave, giving her the ability to not only rest but to regain strength naturally.

God bless you all, good night everyone,

Dar/Danny/Maverick