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Hi everyone, it’s been awhile. As I write this update we enter April 27, 2024. My last update was written on March 9, 2024 which was 49 days or 7 weeks ago on the dot – just a smidgen off from a daily update as I originally intended. Though I haven’t written in such a long time, I want to assure you that I am still here and that I’ve continued to record Jenny’s progress every single day. Information is not lost but it has yet to be written. Though I am no longer capable of writing every day, I am learning to write again when I can.

Since October 1, 2023, until this very day, it has continued to be without a doubt the single most difficult era of my life and whatever the second most difficult is isn’t even in the same stratosphere. The more Jenny progresses in her recovery, in a cruel turn of reality, it adversely pushes me further towards my wits end as a human being. The following phrase has been said to me over and over again from many wise, informed and empathetic individuals but it never stuck with me because it’s one of those facets of life where you must go through it to truly understand it. Among the many phrases or words of advice I’ve received over these past few months, this is the only one that has echoed from their collective voices and it continues to echo more loudly everyday as I live on.

“The most difficult part is yet to come.”

Only now have I begun to understand why I had been told this exact line from so many different people. Though I have been with Jenny everyday watching her struggle to eat again, to sleep again, to walk again and to even see again, these are all instinctive by human nature and have a definitive goal.

However, there is another part of her recovery that does not have a definitive goal because this aspect of recovery has never been completely solved and it never will be. There is no end goal, there is only progress, or regress, and it is what separates us within the animal kingdom and allows us to proudly call ourselves something special – human.

“The most difficult part is yet to come.”

Of all the people that told me this exact phrase not a single one told me the answer to it. I find it surreal that I heard this line so many times and not once did someone tell me the next part to it. I believe I now understand why each of them did this and it invigorates me with a sense of nurtured humanity because it also means every single person knew that I was already on a journey to inevitably figure it out on my own. If they had told me the answer in the beginning perhaps I would not have fully understood. I finally understand now because I discovered the answer that pertains to Jenny and I.

The most difficult part is yet to come – because what I have been witnessing until now has been Jenny’s physical recovery. The most difficult part of Jenny’s recovery begins emerging sometime later in due process and it will directly affect you as her partner, her caregiver, her advocate and her only family in Canada. I will no longer simply be a witness to her recovery because I myself will be pulled into the turbulence of the most difficult part of Jenny’s recovery – Jenny’s mental recovery.

And that is why I have had so much difficulty continuing on writing everyday. When I first started this project in October, every time I wrote something I was sitting there beside her, in the hospital room with this laptop sitting in the dark typing away as Jenny lay beside me either sleeping or staring at the ceiling while kicking her legs involuntarily. This specific Jenny did not know who she was at that time, nor did she know who I was. Her mind and her brain were purely focused on survival. During that time, I was able to write freely as I was alone with my thoughts having my inspiration laying quietly beside me.

But that environment which allowed me to write freely has drastically changed day by day as Jenny continued to progress. As pieces of her came back, as she spoke her first words again, as she said my name again, as she began remembering who she was again, all of these important milestones also happened to be building blocks to the foundation of the first steps towards her journey of her mental recovery. This mental recovery is not a one person journey, because whether I’m ready or not, it forcibly takes me right alongside her.

I talk to Jenny now. She talks to me now. She talks to her friends. She talks to her family in the Philippines. But she is still not fully there. She sometimes asks weird questions, she sometimes says gibberish and she occasionally doesn’t understand basic concepts. She sometimes gets extremely sad off of seemingly nothing and she often gets very irritated or angry at things she rationally shouldn’t be. What you and I can simply connect to as Point A to Point B in our minds, she sometimes cannot. She sometimes yells at me with no reason. If I try to do something nice, she might see it as something offensive. If I do something this way instead of that way, she gets angry. If I cannot explain something exactly in a way she understands it, she gets sad. She was not always like this, but she is now and I am quickly learning that I have to constantly navigate everything trying to move forward in a place where I do not know if left is right or if up is down. And this drains me. It drains me a lot. Along with everything else I need to do, both Jenny focused and not, it collectively drains me beyond my limits.

And this is why I have not been able to write updates as often. Though I haven’t written in such a long time, I want to assure you I am still here. I have continued to record Jenny’s progress every single day. Information is not lost but it has yet to be written. Though I am no longer capable of writing every day, I am learning to write again when I can. There is so much more to write about and I cannot wait to write it all but as much as I want to, Jenny’s recovery will always my highest priority and more often than not, it takes all the time I have left to offer.

As Day Sixty-Nine & Seventy end, Jenny finishes her fourth weekend at Riverview Health Centre. I still remember very clearly the Jenny from that very first weekend four weeks ago. She had kept repeating

“Is this home?”

and was confused why this new “home” didn’t feel like home to her.

Four weeks later, the changes within herself are heartwarming but the changes are also solemn. Jenny has begun acknowledging, most of the time, that she was in a terrible accident and that she has been badly hurt. She has no memory of the accident itself but accepts that something must have happened because she is very clearly not her normal self anymore.

However, following yesterdays Holiday gathering, Jenny’s mood this weekend has been jovial. She was constantly trying to remember as many people as she could, repeating names over and over again but failed in remembering everyone. As I watched her struggle, I came to a decision over something I was debating these past few weeks.

I decided Jenny was ready to begin using her phone again.

Originally, due to the ease of access of so much information, I feared Jenny’s brain would get overloaded or that she would be able to read things that might trigger extreme emotions, pain or even Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. If Jenny begins using her phone again, along with the bombardment of messages from friends and coworkers, she would also be able to eventually navigate to this very website which means she would be able to see the records of her accident. Was her brain ready for this? I did not have the answer though I have pondered over it many times. I knew eventually at some point, she would have to begin using her phone again. As I watched her struggle to try and remember all the people that visited her yesterday, I decided that now was the time for her to begin using her phone once more as the visual aids of such a wonderful memory would help her more than the consequence.

With this milestone being decided right then and there, Jenny officially has access to her own phone again. I have to accept that at some point she will inevitably stumble upon details of her own accident – the very accident she cannot remember or perhaps she has deeply suppressed. Whichever side of fallout occurs in that critical moment will be something she must go through. I hope I’ll be there when it happens as though I am here everyday, I no longer can be there every hour. But that’s enough pondering about the near future, right now Jenny can at least smile at the memories from yesterday and begin reading all the messages that were sent to her since October 1, 2023.

As Day Sixty-Eight ends, there is a surprise for Jenny that I’ve been working on for awhile with some of her closest friends. This evening will be Jenny’s Christmas Gathering, hosted at the Riverview Health Center itself, for friends and coworkers who live in the same city.

As the afternoon went by I was busy preparing the room for the gathering and as I was moving things around some of her closest friends arrived and began to help me decorate which I was very thankful for. Before I knew it, more of her coworkers and friends began coming in. It was time to bring Jenny in for her surprise.

As I wheeled Jenny in through the double wooden doors, the amount of happy screams and noises reached a decibel point of nearly having my body automatically react to covering my ears but as I had both hands on the wheelchair to push her I could not. In total there were 20 people who visited throughout the evening. What an absolute honor that twenty different people took time out of their own days to come here and spend a moment with Jenny. There were many tears of joy and laughter throughout the evening. I was always aware to watch Jenny carefully incase her brain got overloaded but as the evening went on Jenny was having such a great time I could also relax a little and enjoy the evening. One of the funniest stories was trying to see who Jenny could remember. One coworker had just gone through labor a few days back and still came to see Jenny. She went up to her and stated she had just delivered a baby and still came here specifically for today just to see her and that Jenny better remember her for all her troubles. Jenny could not remember her, and the room erupted in laughter. Many, many photos were taken throughout the evening but as I do not have express consent from everyone there is only one I found I can post here.

As this is such a joyous occasion with lots of food, here’s a picture of some of the food from the gathering.

As the evening winded down and everyone started leaving, I had one more announcement to make but did not want to say it at the beginning of the gathering as I feel it would’ve changed the dynamic of it.

Today also happened to be my birthday but I did not want everyone to know until the end of the evening as I wanted this gathering to be all about Jenny and nothing else. So as individual guests were leaving I spoke with them one on one revealing it was also my birthday and that seeing all of them take time out of their own lives to show up today to share a warm, holiday memory with Jenny was the best birthday gift they could’ve given me.

As Day Sixty-Seven ends, due to Jenny’s slow progress with her Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, she has been approved to have Botox injections in her right arm. I always thought Botox was what celebrities attempt to use in order to look younger but I was surprised to hear it has very useful medical purposes as well.

The Botox injections in her right arm will help relax the tense muscles which will in turn help the therapists work on her right arm with more ease. I was told that after the Botox injection it would take around 3 days for it to begin having a noticeable effect on her arm then around the 3 week mark is when the effects are at their peak. After 3 months, the remnants of the Botox will leave her system. All of this seemed great as it will help the therapists work on Jenny’s right arm, however, the process of administering the injection was something neither Jenny or I expected.

Today is the day I witness Jenny endure, by far, the most painful experience she has had to consciously go through.

The Botox injection is done at Riverview itself but the room where it’s administered is in the far opposite corner of not just the building but the entire Riverview area which includes 3 separate buildings. I was given instructions on how to get there from her room and even then I had to pause a lot on the trek to get my bearings as I almost got lost. I had to navigate the underground tunnels which connected the three buildings and in total it took 4 separate elevators and 15 minutes to walk from her room into the Botox room.

When we arrived to the room where her Botox was to be injected, Jenny was asked to lay down on the available bed and wait for them to prepare the equipment. It was a very small, unassuming room painted in the usual tame hospital beige with one large window at the far end, one computer desk in the corner by the door, one extra chair along each wall and the one railless hospital bed in the far corner underneath the window. When it was time, the Doctor and Nurse who specialize in Botox injections arrived with an array of vials, needles and a special device that looked like a modified Geiger counter.

When they turned on the device it let out an audible feedback of subtle white noise through it’s internal speaker. Then, from an attached wire extension they moved the wire end to come into contact with Jenny’s right arm. The very moment this wire touched Jenny’s arm, that subtle white noise all of a sudden became an extremely loud, blaring, chaotic jamboree of loud static. It was so shocking both Jenny and I were taken aback. The Doctor told me the device helps locate and measure the muscles that are tense, rigid or strained and as they dragged the wire around Jenny’s right arm the chaotic jamboree of loud static persisted but as it moved over four peculiar spots the noise exploded into a violent frenzy as if a bomb was set off in the room. Those four spots would end up being the locations her Botox injections would be administered.

The four spots were the inside of the elbow where your skin creases, the inner front of her bicep, the back of her bicep and lastly her shoulder.

Once they marked the spots, they told Jenny that this process was going to be quite painful. I instinctively went to the other side of the bed and held Jenny’s left hand. Once they washed the marked areas on her arm, they prepared the vials and needles and told Jenny they were going to do the first injection into her right arm.

I remember I was holding her hand gently when all of a sudden she squeezed it with so much force that my entire body tensed up and as my body tensed up Jenny yelled out in pain.

“It’s so painful, it’s so painful.”

And that was the first shot of Botox, at the inside of her elbow where the skin creases. This first shot would also be the least painful shot.

As they lined up the next vial and needle, they cleaned her inner bicep and told her they were going to administer the second shot.

I felt Jenny’s body tense up, her face scrunched as tightly as possible, her eyebrows furrowed as deeply as they could and as they injected the second needle into her bicep she let out an even louder scream and near the end of her scream it had that strained noise you make when you are about to cry.

The needle, once in, takes about 10 seconds to fully be pressed as they inject the Botox slowly. And during those 10 seconds, all I can hear is Jenny screaming while gripping my hand as tightly as possible.

As they lined up the third needle, Jenny looked at me and said

“Do they really need to do this?”

And that was when I broke. Tears also began streaming down my face. All I could do was stroke her hair, kiss her forehead and say

“This is for the best so that they can keep working on your arm.”

The third needle was injected into the rear of her bicep, and once the needle was in I felt her body convulse and she even began to fight back. As she screamed, the nurse had to hold down her arm as she wriggled to wrestle her arm to escape. I’m on the other side of the bed, feeling her tightly grip my hand as if her life depended on it and all I could do was kiss her forehead and tell her it’s going to be okay. I could do nothing else.

I cannot share her pain.

I can only be witness to it.

Once the third needle was done, Jenny’s breathing was very rapid and I noticed her body was beginning to sweat.

“Please, I don’t want anymore.”

The last injection was the most important, but also happened to be the most painful. I don’t remember what the Doctor or Nurse said to Jenny at this point as my focus was solely on her, ignoring everything else but this Doctor is one Jenny trusts completely and whatever they said to her, she accepted it and prepared herself for the final needle into her right shoulder.

As the needle went in, I saw Jenny do her best to hold in her scream but a few moments later she let it out. And as she screamed she started making a repeated huffing noise.

Tears.

She was crying and screaming at the same time.

A few seconds in she said

“Stop, stop, stop, it’s too painful.”

And she even yelled at the Nurse saying they were holding her down too hard.

And then it was done.

All four needles, done.

Jenny was sweating, her eyes and cheeks were wet with tears, her breathing was quickly being forced and her left hand still squeezed mine tightly.

But, eventually, her left hand relaxed and she began letting go of mine.

Her breathing began slowing and her face began unclenching.

Three days for this to take effect.

Three weeks for the effects to be at their peak.

Three months for it to leave her system.

And in three months, Jenny will have to do this all over again.

Throughout these updates, I often reference to something along the lines of “Jenny’s pain, Jenny’s screams and Jenny’s tears” but when I write that it is specifically this very day that appears in my mind. The screams I heard from Jenny today are the exact screams that echo in my mind whenever I reference them.

As Day Sixty-Six ends, I was harshly reminded that brain injury improvement is something that isn’t linear and will sometimes be two steps backwards and one step forwards. For the first time since Jenny arrived to Riverview, Jenny cannot recall any memories of yesterday. She cannot remember using the tablet at S.L.P, the news of her X-ray results or her upcoming appointment at Health Sciences Centre. I don’t quite exactly know how to feel about this as it means the time and moments I had with her yesterday were forgotten. I had become complacent in that memory lapses would no longer happen as they had not occurred for awhile yet it has happened once more.

Today at rehab, Jenny once again played special basketball at Physiotherapy like she did last week. However, Jenny has not made noticeable improvement and this frustrated her greatly. Jenny could still barely hold onto the ball with her right hand and cannot move it at all – she cannot even throw the ball into a basket that’s touching her feet.

I had a moment today to talk with some staff at Riverview where we were discussing her right arm and it’s current limitations which led the conversation to how her right leg, right arm and right eye were much more severely damaged from the accident. This lead to talking about accident itself and how Jenny’s vehicle had tumbled into the field from the force of impact and flipped several times. We know now that it ultimately landed on it’s passenger side which meant Jenny’s right side was forced to be pressed against the twisted metal and debris.

We talked about how, other than the vehicle ideally landing on it’s wheels, landing on it’s passenger side is actually the second most ideal scenario. If Jenny had landed on her driver side her body would have been crushed by all the debris and twisted metal. If she landed upside down, she would likely not be at rehab at all. This morbid yet realistic discussion sort of came out of nowhere due to a sequence of events but it made me realize that out of 4 possible scenarios on how a vehicle lands after flipping there was a 50% chance of it landing either upside down or on the driver side. If it had been either of those it very well could have meant that Jenny would not be here in rehab at all.

As Day Sixty-Five ends, Jenny’s X-ray results came back and they show that her fractures are healing well but the X-ray machine at Riverview was not powerful enough to capture all the microfractures in certain parts of her body that were fractured so she has been booked next week to visit the more powerful X-ray machine all the way back at Health Sciences Centre where Jenny was first admitted on October 1, 2023. This will be the first time Jenny is going back to Health Sciences Centre since she left on November 16, 2023. Under normal circumstances Jenny would accompanied by a Health Care Aide for the appointment including the commute back and forth but I was given the opportunity to be her escort and I accepted. I cannot wait to bring her back to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit where she was for 11 days and then the Wards where she was for 36 days. Jenny will likely not remember the staff working there but I am curious to see if she has any sense of familiarity or memory.

I have a hunch the Health Sciences staff will remember Jenny with confidence because during her stay there I was “that guy” who kept asking the staff for all the information they could give me about her ongoing condition every single day. I would also like to use this opportune visit to apologize for pestering them each day.

Today at Speech and Language Pathology, for the first time Jenny was given a special tablet to use for her therapy. The program they had showed Jenny a word and 4 images underneath with one of them being what the displayed word was. Overall, she got about a little under half correct which I’m not sure if that’s considered good or bad since they were simple words and pictures but at least it set a base line of where her cognitive level is at.

The two errors that stuck out to me were when she was given the word “vehicle” and Jenny had to choose from the images of a flower, a car, a rectangle and a horse. Jenny chose the rectangle instead of the car. The second error was when Jenny was given the word “building” and the images were the Sun, a priest, a building and a soccer ball. Jenny chose the priest. I’m not quite sure how to feel about this because I know that for you and I we could easily associate the image of a car to the word “vehicle” very easily and the image of a building to a building.

Jenny’s brain just isn’t there yet and I have to learn to accept that for now all the while hoping it will improve.

As Day Sixty-Four ends, Jenny begins her third week of rehab. At Physiotherapy the team attempted to gauge the current range of motion for Jenny’s right arm and upon simply moving it forward to try and extend her arm from it’s locked position it caused her a lot of pain. Her right hand is also stuck in a sideways position as if she’s trying to do a karate chop. They then began rotating her right hand to face upwards, which they call Supination, and upon rotating it a few degrees Jenny yelped in pain and said it was too painful. She cannot even rotate her palm upwards by a few degrees and when they tried to rotate her palm downwards, called Pronation, the same pain occurs and she cannot continue.

At Occupational Therapy today, Jenny finally received her custom-made arm brace which was created from her mold during her first week of rehab. They suggest to begin with 5 minutes a day and to attempt to eventually get to the point of having it on for 1 hour a day. It has a mechanism which holds her arm in place as it extends its range of motion a millimeter or two at a time.

Hello everyone, between January 17 – January 24 I will be in England as I was selected to participate in the ceremony for my eldest uncles funeral who had passed on December 20 last year. Even though Jenny and I will message everyday it will be the first time I won’t be physically by her side since the accident. It will be an extremely difficult time for her but in the end it is another part of the journey she must go through.

Safe travels to everyone.

As Day Sixty-Two & Three ends, Jenny completes her third weekend at Riverview Health Centre. As a reminder, during the weekends there is no therapy activities and it’s essentially “free” time which sounds nice at first but for Jenny weekends are full of longing as she just wants go home but is not permitted to at this point.

However, in comparison to last weekend this weekend was a lot easier to manage for Jenny because of the recent permission granted for Tofu, our orange tabby cat, being allowed to stay with her at Riverview as long as I am there to monitor their activity.

Even though there is no therapy over the weekends, she is still highly encouraged to walk. Every time they ask her, she refuses but eventually they do bring her anyway. She is currently under the status “two-person assist” meaning whatever she does, it requires two people to assist or monitor her. During her walks she goes to the end of the floor (from the West wing to the East wing and back) and does this twice a day. Each walk takes about 10-12 minutes as Jenny walks very slowly, often stuttering her steps as her balance still has a lot left to improve on.

As Day Sixty-One ends, Jenny is having a particularly rough day following the x-ray procedure yesterday which continues to cause her right shoulder and arm a lot of pain.

Today at Speech & Language Pathology, Jenny was asked the usual series of normal questions and for the first time, Jenny was able to remember the correct date of my birthday without assistance or hints. She would usually have to be given hints to arrive to the correct date. The next activity was more advanced than just pairing pictures and words – it was pairing the purpose of the pictures to words that you had to think about on your own with no help. For example, there was a picture of a flower, a bicycle, a pen and a house and she would be asked “Which of these do you write with?”

Though she only got about 50% of the answers right, the one error that stuck out to me was when she was given four animals: a snake, a cow, a bee and a duck. She was then asked

“Which animal gives you milk?”

and after thinking about it for a moment she said

“The bee.”

The S.L.P. therapist asked again

“Are you sure it’s the bee?”

And Jenny responded

“Yes the bee.”

She still gives a lot of incorrect answers for S.L.P. activities, some where you and I would not even hesitate to answer in a flash because we know it’s correct but Jenny’s brain sometimes just cannot arrive to that point. I am told once she gives the correct answer for about 75% of an activity, they will move her onto the next complex tier of it.

I had brought our cat Tofu today and when we got back to her room he was waiting in her rehab bed in an adorable position and I had to take a photo if it.