Hi Everyone,
The rehab didn’t give Corey the morning off even though she had a big field trip to go on! She had PT, OT and speech from 9am to 11:30 when the Transport Ambulance crew picked us up.

Our first trip was the orthopedic doctor. The first thing they did was x-rays of the left clavicle (shoulder) pelvis and right femur (thigh). Like any doctor’s visit, sometimes you hear good news and sometimes it’s bad news.
Good news, Corey’s pelvic fractures are healing.
Bad news, Corey is producing an “impressive” amount of new bone. Corey doesn’t do anything in a small way! Impressive is normally such a positive adjective, but in this case it’s not because she’s producing bone growth in the tissues at the hip, mid-thigh and knee. She is also starting the same in the shoulder region, which could affect the heart and lung.

This growth is normal for traumatic brain injury patients. The body says, ‘I’m broken, so I have to fix this’. It’s problematic because it can lead to paralysis of the limb until it stops growing. It’s not emergent yet. They will need to do additional surgery in 6-12 months when the growth matures, unless it accelerates. We go back in 3 weeks to measure the growth.

The next stop was the Neurologist.
Good news, Corey’s brain swelling has come down and the VP shunt looks like it’s doing its job really well! Her surgery to put the bone flap back in will be December 9th.
Bad news, they wouldn’t take out the Magic 8 ball! Her brain injury is extensive and very serious. Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to say how she will recover. We are still in the “wait and see” phase. Hard to believe it’s only been 34 days!

Neurology is an amazing field. Let’s use the example of putting Corey’s bone flap in her abdomen! Who thought of that?

Each day there are new discoveries with how the brain heals and adapts to re-map and reroute the connections in ways the doctors couldn’t predict.

But it’s also a very difficult field in the medical world. There is still so much science doesn’t know about the brain.

There are so many stories of miracles. We’ve even had the privilege to meet some of the recipients of those miracles. We need to cling to those stories to strengthen our faith. That faith will help with the good news/bad news days, especially since no one will give us the Magic 8 ball! You know what would happen if we did get a chance to shake it…we’d get “TRY AGAIN LATER”!

Please keep praying for Corey and for us. We truly appreciate and need your support.
Love the Beattie’s xoxo