01-31JAN13 - Houma, LA (dan's recovery continues)

After Dan was released from Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans on new year’s eve (see previous BLOG for why Dan was in the hospital for over ten days at end of 2012) we went to our son’s (Joe) house in Houma, LA, for long term recovery. The reason we picked Joe’s house over Rebecca (our daughter) & Raymond’s house, was because Joe just happened to have two bedrooms with no one in them! This allowed the necessary hospital bed for Dan to be in the center of one room (ie complete access on all sides), & Corrie to be next door for assistance if necessary.

Initially Dan’s recovery consisted of managing the pain (ie meds) & resting. But by the end of January he had definitely improved! To the point he was only using his half the prescribed dose of meds, going to physical therapy twice a week, showering by himself, sleeping in his own bed in the RV, etc. In fact we saw the back surgeon 31JAN & she was extremely pleased with Dan’s progress; told him he can take of his back brace whenever he wants, & only wants to see him again in six weeks for one last CT scan.

Otherwise the month of JAN13 consisted of:

---03JAN Dan got to open the rest of his Xmas presents that were too big to take to the hospital on Xmas day

---04JAN our grandson, Jaxson J Pitre, was one year old & we had a family birthday dinner for him at Rebecca & Raymond’s

---05JAN Rebecca & Raymond had a friends & neighbors B-day party for Jaxson 

---12JAN in keeping with Cajun tradition Jaxson got his first haircut after turning one year old

---14JAN had checkup at Ochsner with “neuro” nurse, all is well

---15JAN start physical therapy on Tues & Thurs; & visit independent orthopedic surgeon - surgeon believes that there will be no further need for surgery in regards to broken clavicle or broken ribs:)

---16JAN Dan gets his first haircut, shampoo, shower by himself & shave since accident

---19JAN go out for first crawfish of the season

---22JAN Joe installs K&N air filter system on our Toad. Joe has same truck as ours, just two years older; & has been modifying it over the years. For Xmas he bought us a high performance air filtration system. We are not interested in increased performance; but supposedly if you drive “normal”, your gas mileage will increase? 

---23JAN Dan tried sleeping in the RV, it was painful at first; but then he remembered we had a sleep number bed (ie air mattress) & he deflated the mattress to lessen the pain

---25JAN since Dan can now sleep in the RV, we reversed the RV in Joe’s driveway & put slide out. This allowed us to not be permanent fixtures inside Joe’s house. Luckily earlier in the month we had paid to install a 30amp RV plug on Joe’s house.

---26JAN Joe finishes installing reverse camera & video screen portion of our new radio in our Toad. The day of Dan’s accident he was working on installing a new Pioneer radio/CD player in our Toad. One of the features of the new system was an integrated back-up camera & DVD player. Dan was trying to figure out how to run the back-up camera wiring under the vehicle when the accident occurred.

---30JAN we received some “cowboy” cookies, & jalapeño jelly from Dan’s sister, Sharon; note – it only took the Postal Service ten days to get the package to us!

Also during the month we had many dinners w/the Pitres (Rebecca, Raymond & Jaxson) here at Joe’s house & at their house too. One night we (Corrie & Dan) ordered Chinese takeout food; Dan’s fortune read – flying is easy, hitting the ground is hard!

Lastly on a health care note – the injuries from Dan’s accident could have been much more serous, if not life threatening. Even though everything is turning out well with really very little major medical intervention, the bills from this one incident would have probably financially wiped us out & stopped our RV life style; if not for our government health care insurance.