Joe Graham continues to recover

“Greetings to Friends and Family of Joe,
The long road back to consciousness continues for Joe. He is at California Pacific Medical Center-Davies Campus at Duboce and Castro, Room 352 in San Francisco. Direct phone line to his room is 415-600-9766. This hospital has an excellent head injury department with a team of dedicated therapists, doctors and nurses. They are working with Joe six days a week, challenging him to achieve everything he is capable of......

Here is what his day is like. He sleeps pretty well through the night. They now feed him from 7pm to 7am, in a slow drip process, because he was having some trouble with nausea and vomiting when they fed him in shorter faster doses. He is cleaned and dressed by 8:00, by 8:30 an Occupational Therapist is in, gets him into a wheelchair and they work on basic self care, using a washcloth or toothbrush. Then he may stay up in the chair until a couple of Physical Therapists take him to a room to work on standing up or scooting along a flat surface or rolling over. Then he most likely gets back to bed and has a quick feeding, which they do twice during the day. He has lost some weight, I think he is at about 135, he was about 150 before the accident, hopefully he will be able to put some back on. After a rest a Speech Therapist may be in to give him water and applesauce, she will most likely time his swallows, initially they took up to 40 seconds, now they are at about 10 seconds. She will have him bite on gauze to desensitize his bite reflex. She will ask him questions, and have him follow simple self help requests. After another short rest, another Physical Therapist will work his extremities, either in bed or back in the wheelchair. One of the Nueropsychologists will stop by and speak with us, helping to understand his situation and the endlessly complex medical terms, like asphsia and psuedobulbar palsy. The hospital has a masseuse, he may stop by and do some mild massage, then Joe's day starts to wind down, by late afternoon he needs rest.

During all this Joe is generally cooperative. At times he does wail with the effort and frustration that he must be feeling. The Nueropsychologist says that this is most likely the result of his own internal stimuli, as his brain tries to organize and reawaken. But as Kitty can attest to, he sure does seem more cheerful when an old friend stops by, like Brian or Emily or Jake and Christine. He also may have an accupuncture session in-between therapies and he has to be watched because he rubs his head and occasionally messes with the small needles in his scalp.

The therapists at CPMC are understanding and can tell when he has had enough. One of them helped me understand the importance of helping Joe rest between sessions so that he can get the most out of his program. We can not imagine what he is undergoing. I was with him for 2 nights and 3 days last week, and I believe that I noted improvement in that short time. He may be near a break through, but we just don't know if he will have language and memory, the therapists and neuropsychologists are optimistic. You all probably have some memory of Joe doing something, taking on some task or challenge. Music, sports, housepainting, school, Mexico church trips, skiing, just that attitude of "Hey, we can figure this out", he has to have that still within him. In school he wanted to do band, college prep, drafting and vocational classes, it was always a struggle for him to accept that he could not fit it all in. Now he has to re-apply himself to learning all over again, until he can re-connect to his past.

Joe will most likely be at CPMC until at least November, the future is still wide open......

Go to backpacker.com under trailhead register to post a note to Joe and u-reg.”

“Sorry, but who is Joe Graham?”

“Joe Graham is the son of u-reg on the other board. He received a head injury similar to Colin Fletcher's in an auto crash. He was in a coma but apparently is now out of the coma but struggling to regain memory and use of his body.

U-reg asked that people remember Joe in their prayers and to shout his name from mountaintops. I thought it was worth posting on this board and have done so from time to time with the request that folks post encouragement to u-reg and joe on the other board. Just a positive thing to do.”