We've been busy as hell this week; between driving the kids all the places they wanted/needed to go, getting Char to and from PT, babysitting, finishing the sale on the old property, and negotiating new space for the dojang, there hasn't been much time to just sit and chill out.

But, the grandkids are back with their parents, the kids don't seem to have much on their schedules this coming week, the property is officially no longer ours, we got a lease for new dojang space, but the big one: Char has been released from PT.

Everything they can do for her, she can do on her own, and has proven to her doctors that she's motivated enough to do it and not wait and see what happens. Without stairs to confront at home, she's safe here and doesn't need me around all the time (to her relief) and if she does need help, it's a phone call and five minutes away.

The next step is getting her reflexes back so that she can drive; she lags about a quarter second behind her thought processes, just enough to make driving something she shouldn't do. Barring that, she still flinches at certain things when I'm driving, so that's another hump to get over. She worries that she may never regain needed reflexes, and that is a remote possibility, but she’s certain that the flinching will wind down to a minimum (and she has gotten a lot better about that.)

We’ve discussed our options for if she simply can’t drive and I go back to work; I’d guess in that case we’d see what it takes to get Alex a hardship license. No, we have not mentioned this to him. Yes, the idea drives me just a little insane. But if kids in ND can drive at 14, why the hell not?

While Char is progressing nicely and healing seemingly well, she’s still in an incredible amount of pain most of the time. She hides it well, well enough that the kids have no idea, but it’s wearing her down. Today she had a MRI of the left side of her body; they’re looking for any obvious causes that may have been missed before. From the outside, you’d think she was 90% healed. Her incisions don’t have that wild raw look anymore and her facial swelling is gone (though her nose is still very tender and probably will be for a while). The bruises have all faded. But still, she’s admitted that most of the time it’s barely within her ability to control, and we need to know why.

We should know by the beginning of next week.

She spent three hours lying still while getting the MRI, and I assumed afterward she would just want to go home and take a nap. But, she wanted to go to the dojang and walk in the pool. I walked with her for a while, and then Alex and Rachel did; Kevin intended to help but cannonballs from the side of the pool were about all he could manage.

No, I did not wear the damned Speedo with the kids there and I won’t if there are any students around. I lost a female student once because of tight Lycra shorts; I don’t care to repeat that.

School starts next week and I think Char will get most of her pool workouts done earlier in the day; the kids are helpful, but… It’ll be more productive if it’s just the two of us, I think.

In the last week she’s seen at least five different doctors. The ER doctor, our personal physician, two surgeons, and some random doctor assigned to her case but she’s only been in there twice that we know of. I threw in a sixth today when I met with the PIC of the ICU to discuss her pain management. It was actually anticlimactic. I went in there ready to butt heads but he had already reviewed her chart and spoken with our doctor and the random doctor and agreed that something needed to be done to manage her pain better. He switched her from an IV medication to Percoset and she says she feels more clear headed and instead of her pain being off the chart it’s around 8 on a 1-10 scale.

That was around nine this morning and before lunch they moved her out of ICU to another floor. She’s in a private room so there won’t be any disruptions from a roommate and the kids can all start to visit her. Alex spent an hour with her this afternoon and I felt comfortable enough to leave them alone for most of it. They didn’t need me hovering and to be honest I needed to walk the halls for a little while and it was nice to have a chance to get food that didn’t come out of a vending machine.

Because I have friends who are a bad influence on him, a few weeks ago Alex bought himself a Kindle and he brought it with him today and left it with Char so that she would have something to do. He bought a couple of books for it he thought she would like and she’ll be able to read without having to turn pages. This kid is a heavy reader and for him to give it up means a lot (though he did hint that it might be a good idea if I bought her one of her own, considering all the down time she’s facing in coming months. I feel stupid for not thinking of something like that myself.)

This is where I clear my throat and point out that someone we know is writing a book and she would very much like to read it even if it is still in the rough stages. Just saying.

Tomorrow I’m letting Rachel and Kevin come. I’m not convinced it’s the best idea yet but she really wants to see them and Rachel especially needs to see her mother, as I am apparently not the go-to parent for things a pre-teen girl need. It was quite the shock to find out she’s more comfortable discussing certain things with her older brother. He believes it’s because she doesn’t want to bother me with anything right now but I don’t want to put him in that position with his sister and I don’t want her to feel like she can’t come to me ever.

Kevin is the one I am most uncertain about bringing over, but Brad will be here and if Kevin balks at the last minute he can hang out with his grandpa in the cafeteria. He’s ten but he’s a sensitive ten, so we'll see what happens when he gets here.

Char is starting to ask questions about the accident but there's not much I can tell her. I know I have to deal with the legal side of things soon. And a couple people have asked in email, so I'll answer it. The guy that hit her was drunk but he did not survive. And we'll leave it at that.

You know family dynamics can look odd from the outside yet perfectly ordinary from the inside; I've had to explain my family so many times I can do it from a rote, practiced explanation, but today I tried explaining it to a nurse and mucked it up enough that she either thinks I'm insane or sleep deprived or both. Our oldest is 13.That's easy enough and the nurse met him yesterday. Today she met my grandkids and I could tell by the look I got that she didn't quite get it. I didn't quite explain it either. But they weren't there to see Char so I didn't really have to.

I took custody of my niece when she was 15. There's a lot of unpleasantness behind that but the short of it is that my sister is no longer in her daughter's life, and God only knows where the girl's father is. So my niece is more like my daughter and the relationship was sealed pretty much like that before she graduated from high school. Her daughter doesn't realize I'm not actually her grandfather yet, and her son is too little to know who anyone really is. But the gist of it, my oldest child is 13 but I have a 6 year old grandaughter and a 5 month old grandson.

Erin brought them to the hospital today while she visited Char. She knew they would not be allowed in the room with her but I think her bringing them was intentional. I stayed in the waiting room with them and got to hold the baby while trying to convince him it was not possible to get lunch on the tap from me, and I got read to from an assortment of Dr. Seuss. The distraction was nice and I probably needed it more than I realized.

Erin was the only visitor I allowed in to see Char today, because she just wasn't up to it. Alex (eldest son; not using their names was turning my brain into crap) didn't ask this morning and I overheard him telling Rachel and Kevin that Mom was"exhausted after the operation" and he didn't want to bother her but he promised he would see her tomorrow and if they want to send notes he'll take them. That kid drives me nuts sometimes and after all the crap we've gone through the last month with him it's easy to forget that he is a good kid and he's a very good big brother.

Tomorrow I'll start making a pain out of myself at the hospital because I'm not convinced they're handling her pain levels well enough. I would have done it today but I wasn't exactly sure who I needed to talk to but Mike (Thumper's Spouse Thingy) turned me in the right direction and I have an appointment with the PIC of the ICU tomorrow and hopefully we can figure out what to do for her. Today she was in a lot of pain and spent most of it fighting tears because of it. That just pisses me off because I don't think she needs to suck that much up.

On the bright side, she had a little bit of an appetite today and was willing to try to eat. She hates that she needs help but even though the right side of her body is just bruised it's still sore as shit and hurts to move. I don't want to contemplate just how upset she's going to be when the solid food is actually digested and the bedpan gets dragged out (and yes, I apologize for that, angel, but it amuses me a little because now you know how I felt.)

It amuses me too how someone you've been married to for 14 years can suddenly be so modest. Evidently bed baths are mortifying and husbands are not allowed to be witness to them. Lesson learned.