Thursday, September 13, 2007

Coming home tomorrow . . . kinda.

Kent is coming back to Salt Lake tomorrow! He'll fly down with my mom and the trauma team tomorrow morning. I know all of you are excited to see him and we hope to let that happen soon. We'll let you know as soon as we have information from his facility on when, where, and how many people can visit. We don't want to overwhelm him just yet so gives us a few days to get him settled and then we'll work out a visiting schedule. I'm sure Paul will have some sort of plan! (Please don't think we're being stingy. . . we're just trying to do the best thing for Kent.)

He is still making some great progress. Dad spent the night with him so he didn't have to be tied down. I'm sure he was super happy about that. Today he walked from his bed to the door and then after a rest, he walked to the other side of the room and sat in the chair and had lunch. After that he walked back to his bed. My mom said that his head didn't hurt as much but he is still really wobbly.

They cleaned out his stitches on his arm. Dad calls this his "loser" wound because it is shaped like an "L". They said that it was looking good. The opthamologist also came and looked at his right eye. He has damage to the 3rd and 6th nerve. The 3rd nerve controls the eyelid going up and down as well as moving the eye in towards his nose. The 6th nerve moves the eye out towards his ear. The damage on the 3rd nerve is more severe. His eyelid wouldn't close so it got really dry. They are putting ointment in in are taping it shut for 3 days. The doctor said he may want to keep it covered until the nerves heal because the double vision may bother him. Try to keep the pirate jokes to a minimum. I'm sure he'll get enough from his siblings.

Anyway, we are sooooo excited to have him back in UT. We'll let you know as soon as we have more info!

3 comments:

Nicole said...

That is fantastic! We are so happy for you that you'll all be coming 'home!' I remember how scared we were for you those first days and are just absolutely amazed at the progress that has been made. There are obviously many people blessed by Kent's life (as is shown by the many people who have followed his progress step by step) and we are glad to have him with us. I'm sure you are going to be overwhelmed with visitors so just let us know when/if you would like us to come. =) We would love to support you any way we can.

Love, Nicole and Alex

Anonymous said...

Hi, i was just wondering if you could post some more pictures of kent standing, sitting, walking, etc. Just any showing his progress. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Tracey,
thank you so much for keeping us informed on Kent's progress!! it has meant so much to me & also our entire extended family has been checking on Kent through this site. we are all praying for Kent continuously.
Shawn Simons (Jake & Jordan's mom)

Kent,
the Simons family LOVES you!!!!!! we miss seeing you around our house!!! we are looking forward to having you blast through our door again soon & giving us all that smile & teasing us endlessly!
Don't give your nurses so much crap! Be nice! Hang in there! we will see you soon!!! Jake says hi & he loves you too!
Shawn Simons