As Day Twenty-Three ends, I received some extra technical information about Jenny’s condition. Starting with her most recent blood work, her white blood cell count jumped from 9 (normal) to 14.8 (very high) which suggests she has an infection somewhere in her body. She’s been started on a general antibiotic as they wait for the blood culture test and urine bacteria test which takes a few days to determine exactly what’s the cause. Once they find out the exact cause they will adjust the general antibiotic to specifically target the infection. They did a chest X-Ray today and it showed nothing significant which is good but she still does not show signs of movement in her right arm and her right eye still does not respond to any stimulus.

Lastly, there was a very important milestone passed today. From all the way back at Day Fourteen, one day after Jenny was able to begin speaking, it was the first time I heard Jenny say “Make it five”, “Make it seven” and “Make it ten”. Since then, she would often repeat this but change the number and I’ve been desperately trying to figure out what she meant. All I had done was continuously ask her what she meant over and over again but she could never explain it to me. Only today, finally, after so much frustration, I figured out what she’s been trying to say to me this entire time.

This evening, as I was looking at her, I saw her left eye move somewhere right before she said “Make it nine.” so on a whim I decided to try something new and look at the room from her perspective. I’ll post Jenny’s view so you have a chance to figure it out before I reveal it.

“Make it seven.” means it’s seven o’clock. “Make it nine” means it’s nine o’clock. “Make it ten.” means it’s ten o’clock. After realizing this I asked Jenny if she was trying to tell me what time it was, and she said yes. I thought about it, then asked her if she is trying to tell me to go home, and she said yes.

This meant that the entire time, ever since Day Fourteen, one day after she was able to say her first words again, Jenny has been trying to tell me to go home because it’s getting late. It means Jenny knows I’ve been here everyday. Though she cannot remember my name yet, she acknowledges I’ve been beside her. This entire time Jenny was just trying to tell me

“Steven, it is getting late. You need to go home and get some rest.”

The amount of tears that suddenly streamed down my face after finally realizing what Jenny meant the whole time was very, very unsightly but it gave me so much reassurance to keep moving forward because it is concrete proof that pieces of her are slowly coming back.