Hello to all of our family and friends following Jeannie on CaringBridge. I have been conspicuously absent in my CaringBridge updates. In fact, the last update was in October when we were in San Diego undergoing the UCLA clinical trial. Sorry for the lapse in information and I will try to bring you up to date in a few paragraphs.
Yesterday marked two years since Jeannie and Becca’s accident. I included a picture of Jeannie and Becca soon after being admitted into Shepherd Center. Our family was talking about these two years this past Sunday evening during our weekly prayer time, focused on what Jeannie, Becca and our entire family and extended family have gone through. We are first and foremost, so thankful that Jeannie and Becca survived this horrific crash and are both with us today. We are also thankful for all of you, our friends and family, for your prayers, encouragement, ideas, fundraising and especially introductions into the incredible network of talent, support and innovation in the spinal cord injury community. When we started this journey on the evening of March 22, 2019, we had no idea what to expect or how to proceed. We also had no idea of how dramatically our lives were going to change and how our priorities and expectations would shift. Thanks to our wonderful friends, we have been introduced to amazing individuals like Alana Shepherd, Sarah Morrison, Ross Mason, Dr. Reggie Edgerton, Dr. Donald Leslie, Patrick Rummerfield and many others who have helped us along our journey. While we are very much still on the journey, we have made tremendous progress in so many areas and have a much clearer idea of our way forward. We thank God for all of you and know that you are on this journey with us. We also maintain our faith that God is at work in our lives and has Jeannie in His hands.
Now for a quick update since October. We completed the San Diego portion of the clinical trial just before Thanksgiving. The trial lasted a total of 9 weeks and we had a fantastic experience with our therapy team and the UCLA transcutaneous electrical stimulation device called SpineX. Jeannie showed meaningful progress in her leg and lower body movement as well as her ability to initiate movement. We came back to Atlanta in late November and immediately resumed therapy at Shepherd in December but without the SpineX device. We continued with Beyond Therapy at Shepherd through the holidays and into the new year until Jeannie and I unfortunately contracted the coronavirus in early January which prevented her from going into Shepherd for a month. We both had a few days of feeling lousy but were fortunate not to have a serious reaction to the virus. Soon after getting the virus, Jeannie developed a significant wound on her backside from a heating and vibration mat she was trying out for spasticity. Wounds and sores are particularly dangerous and debilitating for spinal cord patients so we jumped on it immediately. I called our close friend, Ross Mason, who put us in touch with Dr. Belinda Marcus, a highly respected wound specialist. Dr. Marcus started treatment immediately (although remotely at first due to Jeannie’s corona virus) and managed the treatment closely until the wound was healed. The wound caused further delays in therapy as Jeannie was unable to attend therapy until the wound was healed. Finally, after 9 weeks of treatment, Jeannie got the green light to return to therapy next week. So between Covid 19 and the wound, Jeannie has been unable to attend full therapy since before Christmas. Also during that time, Jeannie’s dad passed away from Covid in January (see a great picture of Jeannie and her Dad) and my mother passed away from complications due to Covid in early February. Suffice it to say, it has been a very difficult first quarter for us.
On the positive side, our oldest son, Connor, and his wonderful fiancé, Maggie, were married in December in a Covid style ceremony at Christ the King. We are so thrilled for both of them and absolutely adore her family. Also on a very positive note, thanks to Sarah Morrison, CEO of Shepherd, we were able to restart our efforts to bring the UCLA SpineX device into Shepherd for Jeannie’s therapy. I am pleased to say that Shepherd has approved the device and we expect to receive the device at Shepherd in the next week or two. This is huge for Jeannie and ultimately for many others!
We are looking ahead to better days and are excited about restarting therapy with the SpineX device. Thanks again to so many of you who have supported this UCLA trial financially for Jeannie and two other patients.
So sorry to be so long in my update. There was a lot to catch up on. Please know how much we love and appreciate all of you. We especially appreciate your continuing prayers and positive thoughts.
Ron and Jeannie
