Great Week

Good news, the speech therapist in working with Mary Ann by-passed the tracheotomy to test her abilities to speak and it resulted in getting two words out yesterday, "David" (maybe it confirms that I am #1 in her life) and "Addie" (Stephanie's baby born six months ago).

She is exhausted each day because the hospital physical therapists are exercising her to her maximum. Her exercises include, today's standing in a contraption that holds her up over a tread mill that allows her to spend a few minutes in an upright position with lots of support attempting the motions of walking. Sitting on the side of bed with help in order to exercise her whole frame. She has three different types of therapists, physical (the whole body), upper body and speech.

Progress is happening each day, sometimes with some real frustrations. As Mary Ann's brain continues to heal and "awaken" it also brings headaches, anxiety and accidents. The other night she pulled out her feeding tube and tracheotomy tube which created a temporary problem, yet the next morning she was back working hard through her exercises with the therapists.

Mary Ann, your courage and strength are an inspiration!

All in all, the 2% formula mentioned last week still applies as she slowly mends. Her progress is like a roller coaster with ups and downs and yet achieving overall progress.

Also, all in all the power of prayers are sustaining her rehabilitation. The power of everyones love for her is palpable. She feels it and we the family feel it. Thank you very much for your prayers and prayer role submissions, submitted all over the world. A friend has added her name to his faith's 10,000 email prayer chain.

TWO PERCENT

Mary Ann's condition is improving by 2 % daily, in 50 days that means she will be 100% better. That is our hope. She is doing the hard work necessary to get her motor mechanisms working again.

Briefly, the hemorrhage occurred in her cerebellum which controls her motor functions of the body. Her mental acuity is as great as ever. Its got to be frustrating knowing you are locked in a body that you can't control.

The 30 second video will give you an idea as to how well she is doing. Keep up the good work Mary Ann. We all love you.

Ups and Downs This Week

Ups and downs were part of the predicted pathways, well that came about this week. Monday good day, Tuesday good and bad day--tried to remove respiratory tube and that didn't work, oxygen mask made for extremely labored breathing, tube reinserted. The good news was they were able to remove the drain tube from her brain.

Wednesday. interesting day, first thing a tracheotomy was performed to make sure her vocal chords wouldn't be damaged and also to assist in better breathing for the future. Rested throughout the morning, but in the afternoon she truly perked up and started to move her arms and toes better than ever. Thursday, continued improvement where it was determined that she could leave the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center (UVRMC). At 4PM she was transferred to Utah Valley Specialty Hospital in the Riverwoods area of Provo. The primary purpose is to strengthen her and wean her off of the respiratory assist. Utah Valley Specialty Hospital is located at 306 West River Bend Lane, Provo, Utah 84040. http://uvsh.ernesthealth.com/

The good news about this hospital is that she can have visitors and that she is making steady improvement. She was greeted by Vic Deauvono singing Maria from West Side Story and Gayle Deauvono giving her a coconut oil rub down. So many do so much, walk the dog, clean the house, read to her, assist in physical therapy, etc.

We love you all and again appreciate the words of encouragement, your prayers and all that you do in showing your love to Mary Ann.

New News

Here are just a few new updates that you might not have heard about. Tomorrow mom will, most likely, get the drain tube taken out of her head (I could tell you the technical term for it but then I'd have to kill you). The arterial line in her left arm came out a couple days ago because her blood pressure is normalized. That just leaves a line in her right arm, a feeding tube up her nose and a couple tubes down her throat to get rid of. Is it a lofty goal to be tube free by the end of the week? She is continuing to move toes and squeeze our hands, blink to yes and no questions, and she can open her mouth a little. The doctor assures us, as do the nurses, that she won't remember any of the unpleasantness of her ICU experience. She is poked and prodded all day and night; this is not the place to catch up on sleep.

We have enjoyed all of your visits, cards, food, flowers, prayers, calls, gifts, songs, & LOVE. We love you!

Downs and Ups

Yesterday was a bit of a bummer. Mary Ann seemed hot and didn't do any of her tricks from the day before, wiggling toes and general alertness. Those were the downs of yesterday but today she's on the up and up again. She looks really good, more swelling having gone down in her neck and her eyes don't look as drowsy. She has had a lot more movement to report: toes, full leg (although the leg movement seems involuntary), and yes, drum roll please, she squeezed her hand! She seems comfortable and hasn't asked for additional pain meds. We've been reading to her, doing physical therapy, massaging legs and arms, and filling her in on the happenings outside of UVRMC. Overall, this has been a great day and after yesterday this is what we needed.
We need to apologize for ever letting a post go by where we fail to mention all the love, prayers, treats, care, well-wishes sent our way. We feel it, we appreciate all you have done for us and Mary Ann. We are (not Mary Ann, she rocks!) undeserving of the magnitude of love poured our way.

More Thank You's

Mary Ann's darling feet and fancy pedicure (we'll take color suggestions for her next pedicure, we need to mix things up!)

Like my dad stated, words cannot express how thankful we are to all of you for your prayers of healing and comfort. We really feel the good vibes coming our way and are thrilled at the progress that mom has made. Today she was very wakeful and can move her toes on command. She is also able to blink to yes and no questions. 
We'd like to mention some other fun things we are thankful for: permanent cosmetics (all the nurses are impressed), cool nurses, texas sheet cake, disco physical therapy moves, evening serenades, coconut oil (our lotion and massage oil of choice) and of course cute toes. 

THANKS TO EVERYONE

There have so many nice people conveying words of support and love, it is almost overwelming in such a nice and sweet way. We know that Heavenly Father answers prayers and those answers have come through people like you. Each of you are most appreciated by everyone in the family. Thank you seems so inadequate, but thanks anyway. David Pollei

Cognition & Movement

We got permission from Barb (her lovely nurse) to wake up mom again and bug her. We've been asking her to blink twice to questions and she is cognizant of what is going on, although the doctor said she won't remember between wakings. What we know: she prefers to wake to her girl's voices, she wants a pedicure, she can't move her hands or toes yet but has moved her legs, and the hospital has amazing chocolate malts.

Eyes Open!!!

Mary Ann has opened her eyes and recognizes us. She hasn't been able to squeeze our hand or wiggle her toes but she can blink answers. It is super exciting but we hope now she's out of the coma she isn't scared and overwhelmed.
Thank you for all your prayers!!! We are so happy with this big step forward.

Weekend Update

UVRMC we woke up to snow blanketing everything. so pretty even if it is spring!

You may not know this but mom is rocking the shaved head look (tempted to post a picture of her at the hospital but not sure if she would like). The weekend was restful and healing. Her doctor told us that coming out of the coma could take a day, a week, a few weeks. We remain hopeful that she will soon come to but if not we'll chalk it up to her brain needing more time to heal. We do know she fluttered her eyes open a couple of times. Yippee! Her color looks better everyday. 

Getting technical...

artist credit: Dr. Howard Reichman medium: light blue hospital flat sheet 

To the left is pictured an example of a normal functioning blood line including artery, capillaries, veins, with pressure amounts. Right is an example of what happened in mom's case. Due to the malformation the pressure was at 50% instead of 4% and hemorrhaged. I really don't know what I'm talking about so visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_arteriovenous_malformation. 
Thank you for the prayers!

Dear Friends and Family,

We thought we'd start a little blog to keep everyone updated on Mary Ann's progress.  

First of all, we can't thank you enough for all the kind words.  Your love, prayers and support have meant so much.  We are so blessed to have such amazing friends and family.

The meals and treats have been so delicious, but the love you all have shown means more than you will ever know. 

Grammy had a cerebral hemorrhage on Friday morning.  Luckily she was able to call 911 in time for them to get her and rush her to the hospital.  She was taken to the emergency room at UVRMC.  We count it as a miracle that one of the premiere neurosurgeons in the world, Dr. Howard R. Reichman was at the hospital and was able to rush her into surgery.

She was in surgery for four hours to repair two ruptured blood vessels at the base of her brain.

The doctors said the surgery went as well as it possibly could.  She was placed in a medically induced coma for the next 48 hours.

This morning she was taken off the sedation.  She remains in a coma, but is not on life support.  She is breathing well on her own and her temperature and heart rate are fine.  Amy and Steph were able to fly out here to Provo right away.  The whole family, and many great friends have been with her the entire time as we wait for her to recover.

Once again, we just want to thank all of you so much for your love and support.  We love you all very much.  Check back as we will try to keep you posted as often as possible.