We didn't go back to Nelspruit again.
Although he was still on the ventilator, he steadily got better and better, and as he got better our focus shifted from tentative, cautious hope, to the mindset of 'let's get him home'.
Getting him home required that he was breathing on his own, which seemed like the most mammoth task that not one of us, with the exception of my dad, could do anything about. Helpless doesn't even begin to describe it.
He progressed steadily day by day. There were dark days, darker than I can even care to imagine as he faced a life without the use of the majority of his body, possibly even including his hands. I have been too scared to even try to imagine what it must have felt like to face that reality, and I know whatever I can imagine would fall so grossly short of what it actually felt like for him. There is just no way to know.
I would try to phone every other day, other than being nearly impossible to talk to him because he was always busy with physio, doctor visits, sleeping or a bath, it was just the weirdest sensation to talk into a phone and have no one talking back. The nurse would hold the phone to his ear and at the end of the 'conversation' she would say that he was 'talking back' but without the evidence of sound, it could have all been a lie.
I would say the same thing every time, "hang in there dad", "keep working hard dad" "we'll get you home as soon as we can dad", "I love you dad".
Then one day I called and started my very familiar monologue and was stopped in my tracks by a very rough and raspy voice answering me back. My heart skipped a beat and the tears started to stream down my face (I'm not sure I've ever cried from joy before), hearing his voice after all that time was one of the most magical sounds. He had been fitted with a cuffless trach which allowed air to pass through his vocal chords and so for a short time we got signs of life from the other end of the phone.
We started to see a light at the end of the tunnel, an actual, real live, potential transfer date to what was supposedly one of the best neuro/spinal rehab centres in the province (country? I don't know).
Finally, right at the end of June he was breathing on his own and had been taken out of ICU and put in a high care ward. He was being taken outside in a wheelchair to see the sunshine for the first time in well over a month. He had started to eat small amounts of food and take liquids by mouth. And after being pushed back a couple of times the transfer date was set.
A few days before his scheduled transfer he even had his trach removed, what freedom he must have felt to have that flippen tube out of his throat. This was amazing. To go from being told we should consider letting him go to about to get him home? Incredible.
And then the day before his transfer the request came through to have the trach put back in because he was struggling to clear his lungs on his own. I wish we had realised what that actually meant at the time. I wish the doctors had taken bigger notice of this little step backwards, it was a sign. That night he had the trach reinserted and then on Monday 4 July 2016, roughly 7 weeks after his accident, he was put back in the ambulance for the long trip 'home'.
We were so excited to be getting him into the major recovery part of this journey.
However, as subtly indicated the night before and despite the confidence that the doctors had in his progress up until that point, rehab was just not to be.
We had been in high spirits that day, waiting for news of his safe arrival at rehab in Pretoria. Then I got the call (there were so many of these calls) just after I walked in the door getting home that evening. Instead of being admitted to rehab, he had been admitted to ICU and put back on full mechanical ventilation. He had gone into respiratory failure on the drive. I would have hated to have been a paramedic in that ambulance that day - can you imagine a 4 hour drive not knowing if you could keep your patient alive long enough to get to your destination? My heart sunk so low. This was not even close to we had been anticipating. I had been dreaming about visiting him in rehab, watching him getting stronger and more capable every week. I felt stupid for even thinking about it. Never get ahead of yourself is what I always try to tell myself (FYI I never listen) and my hope lay in tatters, crushed beyond recognition, in front of me at the dining room table I was sitting at when I took the call.
Someone please tell me how I was supposed to get up from that table and carry on with cooking dinner, getting my kid bathed and into bed like everything was normal? How were any of us, most importantly my dad, supposed to try and understand the purpose of what was happening here? So help me if anyone ever says to me "everything happens for a reason" again. Sometimes there is no reason, sometimes things just go to shit.
I thought I would never have to see the ICU again, never have to put on the stupid plastic apron and the sweaty latex gloves again, and now, now I would be going back to the ICU just in a different hospital, and this hospital, oh my word, this hospital - I will never have anything good to say about it.
However, as subtly indicated the night before and despite the confidence that the doctors had in his progress up until that point, rehab was just not to be.
We had been in high spirits that day, waiting for news of his safe arrival at rehab in Pretoria. Then I got the call (there were so many of these calls) just after I walked in the door getting home that evening. Instead of being admitted to rehab, he had been admitted to ICU and put back on full mechanical ventilation. He had gone into respiratory failure on the drive. I would have hated to have been a paramedic in that ambulance that day - can you imagine a 4 hour drive not knowing if you could keep your patient alive long enough to get to your destination? My heart sunk so low. This was not even close to we had been anticipating. I had been dreaming about visiting him in rehab, watching him getting stronger and more capable every week. I felt stupid for even thinking about it. Never get ahead of yourself is what I always try to tell myself (FYI I never listen) and my hope lay in tatters, crushed beyond recognition, in front of me at the dining room table I was sitting at when I took the call.
Someone please tell me how I was supposed to get up from that table and carry on with cooking dinner, getting my kid bathed and into bed like everything was normal? How were any of us, most importantly my dad, supposed to try and understand the purpose of what was happening here? So help me if anyone ever says to me "everything happens for a reason" again. Sometimes there is no reason, sometimes things just go to shit.
I thought I would never have to see the ICU again, never have to put on the stupid plastic apron and the sweaty latex gloves again, and now, now I would be going back to the ICU just in a different hospital, and this hospital, oh my word, this hospital - I will never have anything good to say about it.
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