Summer weather is HERE at last!! Lane and I have absolutely loved taking daily walks outside and relaxing, reading, or grilling on our porch. We really do love our apartment/townhome complex. There are many young families, college students, and elderly couples.

As far as therapy/ health updates, nothing has really changed in a negative way, which we are very grateful for. Lane continues to press on in his therapy every day and many afternoons a week we spend attending various appointments or simply getting any time we can just together. He’s been seizure free for over a month now! We’re continuing to research HBOT therapy, which we may end up able to do right here in Lansing. We’re very glad for some of Lane’s current physicians/ case managers that are willing to support us in some alternative treatment modalities. If it’s not invasive or harmful and we can afford it, we certainly won’t regret having tried it down the road. Continuing to rest and trust in our good and faithful Creator’s timing as we take on every day. Some days are much harder than others, but we sure can’t begin to fathom how much harder the trials of this life would be apart from Christ.

Praying that you too will look to Christ and rest in Him alone today. Ever grateful for your continued prayer,

Emily (for my hard working husband!)

PS Below are some pictures of our Memorial Day weekend with our Davis family:)

                                       Our niece Heidi was teaching us how to “chill” 🙂

                                                       Uncle Mac and Heidi

                                                      Story time with Heidi and Alice!

                                                            Cousins loving their “walk” time

                                          The same sand  I (emily) built castles in at Heidi’s age

                                          Yeah for boat rides that we could ALL participate in!

It’s been a bit since we’ve blogged…which is probably how it will be now as our lives continue to move on with Lane being much more stable (praise God!). We are learning to take on this new and ever changing normal as a married couple, along with our already very busy lives. We are loving living in our own place and beginning to take on some of our favorite pre accident activities. In fact, Lane had a team meeting with his therapists at Hope last week and this is exactly one of the things we brought up …how much we look forward to and love doing things (with whatever adaptation needed) we treasured doing together before the accident. Activities OUTSIDE the therapy facility. Some of these things include dates at coffee shops, strolls around MSU, and sitting outside and reading our favorite books aloud. Of course there are many, MANY more things we think of daily that we pray we’ll be able to do together again someday that we can’t now. We’d appreciate your prayer in this area specifically. That Lane would continue to make HUGE physical improvements but that we’d also learn to be content and make the most of where God has us today.

Since transferring to Lansing for therapy, Lane also has a new Physiatrist (rehab doc) that we LOVE. She is quick to listen to what Lane desires for treatment/therapy, and is willing to look into alternative type treatments if they are indicated for Lane. Yesterday she wrote an order for Lane to start getting regular massage therapy, as well as more botox injections in his arms before we go down the road of the baclofen pump (what we previously considered but wanted to see if his tone changed at all. It has not). If the botox injections don’t last long or simply don’t relax his muscle the way it needs to, we may reconsider the pump. The way a brain injury can negatively effect muscle tone is incredible. We definitely do NOT want contractures taking place. This is another area where we could use your prayer. Lane gets arm Range of motion twice a day, takes oral baclofen, and wears arm splints, but all of these combined are not helping in the ways they need to or should be. And we don’t want to go to high with the oral baclofen because of it’s side effects.We’ve also recently been looking into possible HBOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) therapy for Lane. Unfortunately it is very expensive and doesn’t have a whole lot of evidence for effectiveness with TBI’s, but in our research we’ve come accross some examples where it worked tremendously well for TBI clients. The closest facility with the hospital grade hard chambers (that we would want) is an hour away and we’d need to travel there 5 days a week for 2 months. We are still researching this specific treatment but if you know ANYthing about HBOT (good or bad), please, please let us know.

We’d appreciate prayer also for diligence and perseverance in Lanes home therapy assignments. Of course it’d be easy for us to spend the entire rest of the day after his therapies just taking it easy (which is needed sometimes:), but we have much equipment at home now that will allow him to practice outside therapy, which will make him stronger for his actual sessions.

For your faithful prayer and support we are SO grateful. Have a wonderful weekend!

L&E

Today we celebrate 2 beautiful years of marriage.

It’d honestly be very difficult to sum up the past 24 months in a few sentences, so I thought I’d post some pictures that are worth much more than words. My favorite is the one of our vows (last picture), a frame that we’ve had in our bedroom  (and hospital rooms:) since we were married. We decided to each write ours out, which has been SO special to look back on, especially during this time that Lane hasn’t been able to write.

As you can tell by some of the pictures taken this weekend, Lane is doing much better and has been seizure free since his hospitalization last week (WOOHOO!). We were actually able to be on the panel at the annual West Michigan Brain Injury Symposium this past Thursday, where we answered questions on Lane’s specific TBI journey. It was pretty neat. Then we stayed at the same hotel in GR we stayed after our wedding for the rest of the weekend. SO fun.

                                                                       Engagement

                                                             First summer married:)

 These two were taken at the WMBIN Symposium this past weekend. It was a privilege to be a voice and encouragement to the health professionals and TBI survivors there. The top is of Lane and I during the Q & A time and the bottom is the MFB advertisement page in the Symposium program.

                                            2 year anniversary at the Holland Tulip Festival!

                        Beautiful flowers from my man:)

Thank you for your continued love, prayer, and support dear family and friends,

Lane and Emily

Wednesday morning I arrived home from a 12 hour shift just long enough to kiss Lane good morning, grab breakfast, and give Lane’s oncoming attendant caregiver some specific instructions for the day ahead. Within an hour I was off to an annual employee performance eval for my RN work. Little did I know what would unfold that day, but looking back, I am so glad I didn’t.

About 5 minutes from my evaluation being done I felt my phone vibrate several times. Picking it up I saw that it was Lane’s caregiver, so as soon as the eval was done I called her back. “Lane just had a seizure and is feeling dizzy and nauseous, she said. I timed it, took his vitals, and ensured nothing was in his mouth like you asked us to do. He says he’s feeling ok now but would like to see you as soon as you can get here.” Recognizing he was stable, I grabbed a McDonald’s coffee on the way home knowing I probably wouldn’t want to sleep anytime soon. The rest of the morning Lane’s doc just told him to lay low but let them know if anything else went on. Later in the afternoon he began to feel dizzy, nauseous, and simply “cloudy.” This lasted for another 3-4 hours so I decided to take him in to Sparrow ER. His symptoms were not a whole lot different than when he had acute kidney failure so I’ve learned to act quickly. We arrived and got checked in and within minutes he was telling me he felt like he was going to seize again. If anything this got him back to triage and his ER room quicker, thankfully. As soon as the nurse introduced herself to him and I his head/gazed fixed to the left and he began to sweat profusely. His seizure lasted a minute or so, then they transferred him to the bed where they began hooking him up to various monitors and started an IV. When the doctor came in I told him about Lane’s recent med change, but also that he’d gone 10 months without having a seizure while on the previous med. Within the last 2 weeks he’s had 4 with dizziness and nausea in between. He said he would get blood work as well as a CT and chest X-ray done to rule anything out.

By 11pm we had been told that nothing abnormal was revealed in any of the scans or bloodwork but that they wanted to start him back on his old seizure med and stay the night for monitoring so the MSU neurologists could see him in the AM. Around 11:45p we were in Lane’s Neuro step down room, both ready to sleep for days.  After an uneventful night (except the lights being turned on ever 2 hours by the nurse to turn him :(), we were very ready to go home. The neurologists had stopped by and gave us an excellent explanation of why the seizures were occurring and what they wanted Lane to do with his meds from now on. We arrived home around 4p yesterday, physically and mentally worn, but grateful.

Grateful that even though Lane had the 4 seizures, nothing abnormal was causing them. Grateful that the doctors were quick to listen to my concerns and did the CT/blood work. Grateful that Lane’s seizure on Wednesday am didn’t take place while I was on a 12 hour shift. Grateful that the Neuro docs recognized what’s been going on and started him on a (hopefully) more efficient seizure med. Grateful that our NTBI family was quick to understand and reschedule our chapel presentation that was suppose to take place today. Grateful that even though Lane and I have been physically, mentally, and emotionally drained the past few days, Christ alone has sustained us with His peace, grace, and strength that is fully sufficient.

Thank you for your prayer, love, and support dear friends. Please continue.

Encouraged and upheld by our Savior today,

Emily (for Lane too)

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14:27

As we sat around the dinner table yesterday with our Davis family (we missed you Bargerons!), Lane and I couldn’t help but look back at last year’s Easter celebration. First of all, he couldn’t yet leave Mary Free Bed, so we celebrated there. Secondly, he was on a soft foods diet, so everything he ate had to be within this soft foods category (jello, deviled eggs etc:). He was SO thrilled to be out of the hospital eating meat and regular food yesterday! But what didn’t change and never will regardless of our circumstance is the reason we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Yesterday our Pastor at FBC spoke on one of the greatest fears of mankind, death. He spoke from Hebrews 2 and the reason we as believers have no reason to fear death, because our Savior defeated it by His death and conquering of the grave. What a beautiful reminder, as none of us know what our tomorrow holds. We pray that each of you, dear family and friends, know Christ. If not, email us. We’d love to share more about HIM with you (lanemily12@gmail.com).

Update on Lane’s therapy/health: Therapy is going great and he is adjusting really well to the Therapy facility here in East Lansing. His sleep is gradually getting a little better since a recent med change, which we are grateful for. There’s still lots of room for improvement though.

We are also looking into a possible massage therapy (craniosacral massage) that is suppose to be really helpful for insomnia and fatigue etc, or any TBI’s in general. Unfortunately since Lane’s seizure med has recently been changed, he’s had 2 seizures (the past two Sundays). The first was an absence seizure and the second involved some tremors, both lasting around 35 seconds. His Epileptologist (seizure doctor) knows about both and will be getting back with us today about what she wants us to do. Please join us in praying that no more seizures will occur and that this new med will simply eliminate them. Also that nothing else (change etc) in the brain is causing these seizures.

In just two short weeks we celebrate 2 years of marriage. Can this really be?! Some days we honestly tell each other that it seems we’ve been married well over 10 years with all that has gone on…but other days we can’t hardly believe 2 years have passed by. Lane and I figured out today that since the day we were married he has been in inpatient hospitals/rehab facilities more than the time we’ve lived at home. On our anniversary (May 4th)  we’ll have lived at home for 9 months and 26 days (pre and post accident), while he was in the hospital for 14 months and 2 days. Looking forward to the day our “days together at home” will outnumber inpatient facility days!

 Thank you for your steadfast prayer and support, dear friends. We still so desperately need it.

Love,

 Emily (for my hard working champion)

PS. These pictures were taken yesterday, the top is Lane and I with our niece Alice, bottom is our sister in law Jenny with she and Ivans daughter Heidi, Emily’s sister Elizabeth, and her friend Faith from college. Middle is Lane with the new son of our good friends, Stephanie and Preston Nichols (Trenton Lane:).

Just received Lane’s sleep study results! The really good news is that Lane’s breathing and oxygen levels are not what is disrupting his sleep. They said it’s considered sleep disrupted breathing when the person completely or partially stops breathing 5 times or more an hour during the study and the most Lane did was 0.9/hr. Lane’s oxygen levels also averaged 96% and his lowest 02 saturation throughout the night was 92% (on the low end of normal). Like I said, this is wonderful news, but we still have no idea what is causing his lack of sleep. We’ll be addressing this with his PCP and physiatrist soon, but our guess is that the culprit is simply his TBI:( His sleep doctor did prescribe a med that is starting to help him sleep deeper, which we’re praying continues to work and improve.

We’re stoked that the weekend is here after a long week of work and therapy for us both. This spring weather we’re starting to have is a HUGE perk too. And this spring we’ll actually be able to go outside and enjoy it:) Thanks for your continued prayer and support. It means more than you’ll ever know.

Gratefully,

L&E

“You will keep him in perfect peace who’s mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength.” Isaiah 26:3-4

Well our day didn’t go exactly as planned yesterday, but we’re learning to roll with the punches as Lane would say. We left over 30 minutes early and got stuck in traffic for over 45 minutes on 96 because an over sized load tipped over ahead of us. Big bummer especially with the distance we have to travel to these appointments. By the time we arrived at Saint Mary’s the Pulmonary office had closed, thus no pulmonary function test took place:( There was some good that came from this though, as we were able to grab dinner and stop by MFB for a few minutes to see some old Nursing staff friends. As Lane and I ate dinner overlooking the GR skyline at St. Mary’s (one of our favorite GR views),  we were reminded once again ALL that God has faithfully done throughout the past 16 months. Just 9 months ago we were overlooking this same view with an IV pole in tow, a heart monitor on Lane’s chest, and Lane’s CCU nurse behind us in case anything went awry with his acute kidney failure. Even at Lane’s sickest moments we tried to get away to this beautiful view and spend precious time in the word—which put every bit of our momentary suffering in perspective.

8 o’ clock rolled around and it was time for the sleep study prep to begin. They set Lane up with his leads and by about 10:30p we were both sleeping. Around 5:30a we heard Lane’s tech announce overhead that she had successfully kept track of him sleeping over 6 hours. This was honestly the worst part of the night because we had to pack up and leave :/ She also said she wasn’t allowed to give us the technical results but it was apparent that he had no/minimal apnea or periods of hypoxia because he didn’t need any CPAP/BIPAP devices or supplemental oxygen. Praise God! We’ll know the full results in 7-10 days. We are praying the doctor will give us tips or wisdom as to what we can be doing to majorly improve Lane’s sleep.

Thanks for praying and have a wonderful Saturday!

Emily (for Lane too)

Tonight we are off to Lane’s long awaited sleep study.They actually set up his pulmonary function test right before too so we don’t have to make separate trips to GR. We are praying we’ll receive some answers as to why he has slept horribly since October (when he left Mary Free Bed). We’ve done everything from switching/adding/taking away meds to changing mattresses to moving therapies around to accessing oxygen levels and eliminating any caffeine and light in the room at night. Unfortunately many brain injuries have a part of the brain effected so their brain simply doesn’t shut off or turn on as it used to with their sleep/wake cycle. But wondering why it would’ve just started in October!?!! His routine/meds were exactly the same at inpatient Hope than they were at MFB. We are both SO ready for a good nights sleep. Recognizing the importance of sleep and how much lack of sleep effects both of us, please join us in prayer for this study and test tonight.

Incredibly grateful that He is our strength when we are weary. Thank you for praying, always.

Emily

Lane and I had the chance to go back to Grand Rapids today. As we got closer we were reminded of a few of the many reasons we are glad to be out of that city. The closer we got the temps dropped and the snow increased:) Yes, we miss the people but not the lake effect weather!

Lane’s sleep has continued to be really limited so our first stop today was a consult with a sleep doctor. We had to wait several weeks for this appointment so we were thrilled when the scheduler said he could come in for an April 4th sleep study. Based on Lane’s ENT a couple weeks back we know its not an upper airway/breathing problem that’s causing him to lose sleep. They’ve narrowed it down to the possibility of a med (that he’s tapering off) or his decreased diaphragm strength, thus needing assistance in the lower airway throughout the night (a BIPAP could assist this). We are praying that the sleep study coming up will give us some definitive answers. The sleep doctor we saw today was also a pulmonologist, and scheduled a pulmonary function test in April to assess his lung function/capability.

Our second stop was a CPAN conference in GR. CPAN is the Coalition Protecting Auto No Fault, an organization that we’ve found to be incredibly helpful in learning all that is going on with Michigan’s recent auto no fault bills. We left with SO much information and are looking forward to addressing some specific things with the legislators in our area, as well as informing friends and family with what they can be doing. Unfortunately we found out the Republican party is the side that is voting most hugely against Michigan’s auto no fault. We’d like to encourage YOU to research it more via the CPAN website and read stories of how Michigan’s auto no fault has effected thousands. A couple specific FAQ’s:

1. Is Michigan’s auto insurance so high because of auto no fault?
NO. This is what auto insurance companies may try to tell you but its because Michigan policy holders pay the most in the country for collision coverage (nearly 30% above the national average).

2. So what if the auto no fault is capped at 10 Million (House Bill 4612)? Why “unlimited access” for no fault? A better way to look at this is lifetime injury care. If someone did not need this care they would not need the unlimited access. If the auto no fault law is capped thousands of the most severely injured will be forced to turn to Medicaid to pay for their care. And where would that come from? Taxpayers. You and I.  A recent study done by Public Sector Consultant found that taxpayers could be charged an additional 30 million in Medicaid costs every year if benefits were capped. For example, in Colorado lawmakers eliminated auto no fault and the Medicaid budget skyrocketed more than 205% in less than 5 years! This site has more info on the recently proposed bill and all that it would entail if passed:  http://autonofaultlaw.com/michigan-auto-no-fault-reform-hb-4612

3. With Michigan’s auto no fault aren’t people basically paying twice for health insurance?
None of us know when a serious injury of any kind could take place via an auto accident. Lane or I sure didn’t expect this 7 months into our marriage. These serious accidents are what Michigan’s auto no fault is for. Many health policies exclude auto accident coverage and limit skilled nursing care to 45 days a year. This would’ve been about one tenth of what Lane required.  On top of this, most health insurance plans only cover a combination of 60 visits per YEAR for PT, OT and Speech therapies.

4. Why is Michigan the only state with this type of auto insurance?
Unfortunately because of this in many other states families have had to file bankruptcy before Medicaid will pay for their injuries. And the nursing homes have young people surrounded by seniors in order for their family to afford this care. Michigan should ultimately be a model system. Our auto insurance is for drivers and funded by drivers, not other taxpayers.

Just a few answers to the questions we have wondered and have been asked. Please join us in supporting Michigan’s Auto No Fault and talking with your legislator about the importance of this system. Or check out http://www.cpan.us/michigan_no_fault_system.php

Thanks for your prayers and continued support!

Lane and Emily

Today we went to see an ENT specialist in Detroit. Lane’s breath support and vocal quality has been significantly diminished since the injury, so this was something we wanted to investigate. The Otolaryngologist took a video of his vocal chords/ trachea and discovered NO abnormalities! He said it’s what non injured vocal chords should look like and was not worried about any obstruction, scar tissue, or collapsing of the trachea because Lane is having no trouble with his normal breathing (or noise). This has left us with one more possibility ruled out, which we are grateful for. The specialist today was pretty certain it has to do with a weak diaphragm (which we had thought because of what improves his voice), so he referred Lane to a Speech therapist that specializes in voice as well as a pulmonologist.

Please pray with us as we look into this and find specific specialists to help Lane in this area. Lane has so much wisdom and so much to say. If you’ve met him, you know this. When he has to repeat himself several times for those that are listening its discouraging, understandably. Pray for peace, and that we’d find ways to strengthen his vocal volume. It may seem insignificant compared to everything else that has gone on, but I miss singing (belting:) our voices hoarse as we drove down the road…or hearing him sing in the shower…or simply singing songs of worship together. Thankful that his trachea/vocal chords are not what’s causing this difficulty.

 The Doctor left us with tremendously happy hearts as he spoke these 7 simple words today.

“Lane, we’ll get your voice back again.”