hey ...more updates..............
Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005
C.R. has moved to neural rehab, the last step before going home. This is where C.R. will re-learn how to perform all of the functions we take for granted, such as sitting, standing and walking.
C.R. could be home in as few as two or three weeks depending on his progress in neural rehab.
"[This was] one of our best Christmases. Thanks to all of you for the encouragement," said Rusty Johnson in an e-mail.
C.R. can now read as well, so be sure to continue sending your encouragement to loveforCR@freeskier.com.
Monday, Dec. 26, 2005
Powder's Derek Taylor checks in from Salt Lake City
CR made huge strides towards recovery over Christmas. I stopped by for a visit on Monday and was surprised to find him alert and talking in a whisper. He is moving both sides of his body now, and when I arrived, had just gotten back from physical therapy, where he was working on standing again. CR is already showing the same determination that made him a world-class athlete; according to his parents, he asked the physical therapist “don’t give up on me.”
He was able to recognize me and answered a few questions, but most of his conversation was centered on food. After a week of being fed through a tube, he was obsessed with eating again. He waited most of the morning to be cleared by the speech therapist to eat solid food. This, or course, just made him more hungry and frustrated. He kept asking for Mexican food, said he was going crazy with hunger, and that he was “going to snap.” At one point, his father asked him if he remembered what city he was in, and CR responded, “Shit-Hole No-Food City.”
Once the therapist arrived, CR tried to leverage the tests she was asking him to complete to get food. “I’ll do anything you want, just give me some food,” he whispered. The therapist went through a variety of tests, starting water, then juice, apple sauce, and finally graham crackers. The purpose of the test, she said, was to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally inhale food and liquids and further complicate the pneumonia he is fighting off in his right lung. “I won’t aspirate, I promise,” he said, using the nurses terminology.
CR just started to move the left side of his body, so for his final test, the therapist put a cracker in his left hand and let him feed himself. Possibly the most humbling moment of the visit was watching one of the world’s most prolific skiers, someone we’ve grown accustomed to seeing boost 20-foot airs out of the pipe, struggle to stick a cracker in his mouth. When the session was over, however, CR was cleared for solid foods and put on a restricted diet.
According to his mother, Lorraine, some of CR’s most significant breakthroughs of the week have come with Tanner Hall in the room. Tanner was the only one in the room when he opened his eyes for the first time. Lorraine says he ran out of the room to the nurse’s station and yelled, “Yo nurse! Come here quick, he opened his eyes.” The next day CR was awake when Tanner arrived, and CR lifted both arms for the first time.
While his progress is promising, CR has a long way to go. The Johnson’s have gotten hundreds of e-mails at the loveforcr@freeskier.com address, and say they support is making a huge difference. Lorraine says CR is able to read, so keep the positive messages coming.
Snowbird pitched in to help make the Johnson's stay in Shi--er--Salt Lake City as easy as possible by offering free lift tickets to the family so they could take a much-needed break from the hospital and hopefully enjoy the storm forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday
