From July 22nd through July 24th

First of all, I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love, support, and prayers. James 5:16 gives the assurance that "supplication...has much force."
I decided that the best way to keep everyone informed on how Rob's doing is to keep a blog. Not only will all who are interested be able to read the updates, but the information will be as accurate as possible without being passed along and misinterpreted.
I'll start at the beginning, for those I haven't been able to speak with, or for those who have some of the more popular questions I haven't been able to answer yet.
This is the article from the Norwich Bulletin
Number 1 question: Was he wearing a helmet? YES. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the medical personnel at both hospitals comment on the quality of his helmet and that this situation would be completely different had he not been wearing it. It's in rough shape, but the alternative to the helmet being in rough shape is something I'd rather not think about.
Second most popular question: How did (you) find out? Rob and I were watching the 10 o'clock news together while he had some stuff to eat before heading out to work. He got into his work clothes, packed up his backpack, grabbed his helmet, etc., and headed out the door shortly after 10:30 p.m. Thursday night (July 22nd). He knows to text me when he arrives at work when he takes his bike because I worry about him on it. (I hate the bike.) 11 p.m. rolls around and I start watching the clock a little, but don't worry too much because sometimes he has to get right to work and might text me 1/2 an hour late, once he gets settled in. However, my phone rings at 11:15-ish and it's my brother-in-law, Mike. The immediate panic that something's wrong sets in. Rob hadn't arrived at work and someone found out that there was an accident on the road he drives to work, involving a blue and white motorcycle. I don't much remember screaming at the kids to get into the van or driving to the scene of the accident, but I have the vivid memory of seeing the blinking light at the intersection of Route 44 and Gary Schoolhouse Road in Pomfret and Rob's motorcycle off to the side. On a "normal" day, I can't run. I can't even walk right, so sheer adrenaline carried me as I ran toward the scene as far as they'd let me go. The kids were beside me and I know they started crying as I fell to my knees on the street next to the police cruiser. No one would tell me anything about Rob's condition, but the front of his bike was smashed up and laying underneath the back of the pick-up truck he hit. I sort of remember begging the police officer to get my brother-in-law because I knew Mike was also on his way to the scene, but before we caught up to each other the responders decided that one of the firemen would drive me and the kids to Day Kimball. He made it sound okay to me, like Rob was going to be perfectly fine and I'd be taking him home. At DKH, though, they were prepping him to be airlifted to UMASS, pumping air into his lungs manually. No words can describe how I felt.
The trauma team at UMASS got him stabilized in the ICU after giving him a CAT Scan and doing other testing and x-rays. Again, so much is a blur, but a doctor came in to talk to us and I heard "bleeding on his brain" and lost control. I thought I was going to throw up and just wanted to get to a bathroom. I don't know what early hour of Friday morning we were finally allowed to go in to see him. It was awful. I did take a picture, but I'm not going to post it publicly. Tubes down his throat, wires hooked up everywhere, a whole bunch of IV's, and a neck brace adorning my beloved husband.
A neurosurgeon spoke with me about the need to put a probe through his skull to monitor the pressure in his brain. He explained different things and then asked me for my consent. There I was thinking, "Huh?" I had to tell him I have MS and ask him to tell me everything again so I could figure out what the heck I was doing. We talked about MS for a minute and then he went back into the procedure in a much-easier-to-understand manner. I appreciated that and consented. It took 15 minutes and the probe was in place, adding to the many things already protruding from my husband. It also added another number on the monitor to watch and worry about.
Rob was pretty unresponsive at this point and eerily cold.
His brain sustained a lot of bumping around and has several areas of bruising and bleeding. The most significant injury to his brain is a spot about the size of an egg on his frontal lobe. There's another spot that's affecting the strength on his left side. The blood will eventually become re-absorbed, but when there's bleeding in the brain, the cells where the injury is will die. Therefore, it's most likely that Rob will suffer a personality change. It's expected that he'll be more short-tempered and be more vulgar. The weakness on his left side is expected to improve within a few months, although the doctors have said it's difficult to predict the outcome at this point, since his brain will continue to swell for a few days and then begin to heal.
He's scraped up a little and has some nasty bruises on his inner thighs. He has a broken rib and a bruised lung that's bleeding a bit. Of course, since he ate right before leaving for work, he vomited after his accident and some stuff got into his lungs.
Alright, that brings me up to Saturday, the 24th. I'd say there were some good signs Saturday. He opened his eyes a little! :) The doctors continually brought him off sedation and did, what they call, "holiday." Basically letting him wake up and see how he responds to commands. He hated it. That's a good thing! :P It was clear that the movements he was making were not involuntary. He wanted to rip everything off of himself and was pretty determined to do so. He does have to be tied to the bed so he doesn't hurt himself. At one point while I was holding his hand he kept squeezing. I didn't think about it until I realized he was squeezing three times, stopping, squeezing three times...This is something we do with each other randomly. Three times for "I love you." One of us first, then the other. So, after I figured out he was doing it, I squeezed three times and then he squeezed in response three more times! :D I was so excited and wished I could just grab him and hug him. After that, they really didn't let him come off the sedation that much because the pressure in his brain increased too much when they did it, but I can't stop thinking about that moment.
When the Saturday night nurse came on, we discussed Friday night, since she was his same nurse. She said his ICPs (intercranial pressures) were pretty bad overnight Friday. She also suctioned his lungs and there's quite a bit of blood and "gunk" coming out, which is starting to become a concern. Nothing's more important that his brain injury, of course, but his temperature has been getting very high and his oxygen levels have been getting lower. She told me that there's a certain temperature he's getting close to that, once/if he reaches that, they will need to begin treating the injury to his lung. Not that it's not important to treat. It's just that they want his brain to heal without adding stress to his body.
He remains on a respirator. He scared the heck out of me because started coughing Saturday night. With the tubes down his throat he makes no noise, so he looked like he was convulsing and I almost had a heart attack! Thankfully the nurse was in the room so she let me know what he was doing before I landed on the floor. A doctor came in to speak with me around 11 p.m. He said they don't pull him out of sedation overnight. They periodically try to get a response out of him while he's sedated and they check his vitals and temperature every hour throughout the night, but the majority of the stimulation and neurological testing is done during the day. Comforted enough by that, I made my way home for a little R & R (yeah, right!) before getting up bright and early Sunday morning to make my way back up to hold vigil at my love's bedside.