This was written some time after midnight on Thursday night. . There is so much to report that I don't know where to begin, so I guess I'll start with where we last left off - Tuesday morning, March 4. Norma awoke early, as usual, after a better night's sleep than the night before. It took her approximately two hours to shower, get herself dressed, and go downstairs for breakfast at approximately 8:00 a.m.

We found "Mommer" Ireland sleeping on the couch (what a slacker!), having taken care of Scooter yet another night - move over Cal Ripken - Mommer's on your heels! We have a good breakfast. Norma has her usual fruit yogurt, one half a banana, and adds to her menu a piece of chocolate, a donut gem or two, and an Oreo double stuff cookie with a skim milk chaser (unfortunately, we're out of Bud Lights). I smile to myself thinking "By George, I think she's got it...The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!" Norma, do you know where my slippers are?

Ginger arrives late morning for her shift. Norma has a good day on Tuesday and stays up all day without a nap! At 7:00 p.m. we enjoy and share a couple of pizzas while watching American Idol (yes...I'm loving the new menus!). After Idol is over, Norma is ready for bed. One of the main hurdles we are having with Norma over the past few days since she came home is making sure she is taking her anti-seizure medication at morning and at night. With her short-term memory loss, she is very confused about time perception. In other words what she may have done yesterday - she thinks she did today. Since neither her regular physician’s name nor her migraine headache physician’s name are on the prescription label of her new medication, and she doesn't remember her three weeks in the hospital at UIC, she really challenges us about taking this strange new medicine.

Tuesday night is another good night's sleep for Norma. She set her alarm for 5:30 a.m. and gets up and gets moving right away. Wednesday morning is pretty much the same as the day before. However, today Norma's sister, Nancy, will be spending the day with Mommer and Norma. This gives me an opportunity to go back to work at my Northwestern Mutual Financial Network office and to visit a friend and client to take care of some business. I work from noon until about 6:00 p.m. Nancy is staying overnight as we have a big day lined up on Thursday!

On Wednesday evening, Nancy makes a wonderful chicken pot pie for us and we “garboon” it at our dinette table, then go down to our basement theatre to enjoy watching the American Idol women perform. We retire to bed immediately after Idol because Norma has an 8:30 a.m. CAT scan scheduled at UIC Chicago and a 9:20 a.m. visit with her surgeon Dr. Sepideh Amin-Hanjani. After that we plan on driving to Edwards Hospital in Naperville to meet our Chicago condo friend, Mary Vercellino to drop off her keys and garage door opener, but more importantly to give her a big hug and thank her personally for her generosity in extending their Chicago condo to us during our three week stay at UIC. From there we will drive to Marianjoy in Wheaton for Norma's first rehabilitation session, which will be from 1:15 to 4:15 p.m. We have a full day ahead of us! (See attached photos of our excellent Thursday adventure).

Before I give those of you who are interested in some additional detail on how our meetings with the doctors, etc., went on Thursday, I do want to let you know that Norma does now have a schedule for her rehab therapy. It's going to be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 1:15 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. in Wheaton. Several of you have asked if there is anything you can do to help while Norma is attempting to recover from this ordeal, and we would gladly accept any assistance you can give! We'll be looking for anyone interested to come be with her Monday through Friday. Carolyn Dial has offered a Tuesday (her first choice) for the whole day including the rehab. She can also do a Thursday or a Friday if someone else can only do Tuesdays. So, now that we have Norma’s schedule in place, if there is anyone that might have some times available to help out, that would be great. We're hoping this will be a short-term situation, maybe for the next 60 days. At that point, if Norma's cognitive impairment has not improved enough to where she's still going to need constant 24-hour care, we are fortunate to have Northwestern Mutual long-term care insurance. This should provide excellent benefits for in-home care so that she can stay at home and be monitored and concentrate full-time on her recovery. With that being said, I'd like to give you some detail on how Thursday went.

Those of you who know me know that I unfortunately don't always have a good sense of time perception either. I always think I can get a couple more things done or have a little extra time to do something else before I head out to my next appointed duties. With that being said, we got a late start getting up on Thursday so that we could arrive at UIC for Norma's CAT scan at 8:30 a.m. I forgot that Norma is taking about two hours to get ready and I only planned for an hour. So it was a hectic start to our day, and we bolted out through the door with a couple pieces of pound cake for breakfast that had our names on them. Nancy, Norma and I sped off to UIC, and we were very fortunate that the traffic opened up for us. Gee, another miracle!

We arrived at UIC's parking lot a little after 8:00 in the morning for our 8:30 appointment. I had time to drop Norma and Nancy off so they could go to the CAT scan area. I then went and parked my car and, as divine intervention would have it, I again got the first space in the parking garage deck so that I could hurry in to hook up with Norma and Nancy. (I barely beat an elderly lady with crutches in her back seat out of this space. That’s what elevators are for. Ok, maybe it was a young person). The CAT scan was taken at about 8:32, and then we went to see Dr. Hanjani for her appointment at 9:20. As far as the CAT scan goes, that came out well. They're monitoring some possible fluid build-up, but everything so far looks great. We will be going back to UIC for a follow-up CAT scan and a meeting with the surgeon on April 10.

Dr. Hanjani explained to us that the area where Norma experienced her aneurysm will be permanently damaged. The brain does not regenerate itself like our skin does. However, different parts of the brain can oftentimes be retrained to do the work that the damaged part used to do. Thus, the therapy! Dr. Hanjani also explained that there may be some personality changes but it is too early to tell. FYI – Norma is still very polite and smiley and still has a great sense of humor. She’s been sticking out her tongue and making faces at us…which previously has always been my forte! What goes around comes around…yikes!

Shortly after Norma dumps her hot Cocoa on the nurse practitioner, I try to console her by telling her that she only owes me $2 bucks for the hospital cocoa - Norma is relieved as she thought it was from Starbucks which would have been at least $4 bucks!

Just another one of our many angels!  The Intensive Care Unit nurses and staff were outstanding and caring individuals here at UIC - thanks to All of them! They are very special and dedicated people!

We stop by Edwards Hospital in Naperville to hug & meet Mary Vercellino who shared their Chicago condo so that Ken didn't have to commute from Sugar Grove to Chicago each day We can't thank Mary and husband John enough! If anyone is interested in possibly leasing their condo for 3 months or longer, please contact us and we will connect you with them.  They do lease it out for people coming to Chicago for business and it is fully furnished with an indoor parking space-it was great! Thank you!!!!

We next left UIC and drove back to Edwards Hospital in Naperville to meet with Mary Vercellino to again say thank you. We had time to get something to eat at Quizno's in Wheaton before we went over to Marianjoy for therapy. Norma has three therapists. Elizabeth is her Speech Therapist. Jeannie is her Physical Therapist and Kate is her Occupational Therapist. We're also working with a supervisor by the name of Sue who's been very helpful in getting everything arranged. It was very interesting to go through the three hours of rehab with Norma. It's going to be interesting to watch Norma's progress. Jeannie, the physical therapist, says Norma's very strong and very balanced on both sides as far as strength, and she probably will only need about two to four weeks worth of physical therapy. The speech therapist and occupational therapist also work very closely together to make sure that the cognitive and the reasoning skills that are necessary to make decisions in every day life, as well as also running a business, are compatible and up to full speed. This is the area in which we're still going to need a lot of prayers, because this is something we and they perceive will take a very long time. So, as our good friend Dan Pearson suggested, we want to keep this website open because we are certainly not out of the woods from the cognitive side of things. It will just be a matter of time. The good news is that Norma's long-term memory is very good, and I hope that comes as good news to all of you…unless at some point you double-crossed her in life. She remembers that very well!!! She has so many friends and family, including our NSSEA family which she's very close to. We are confident that she will remember all of you and be able to pick up where you last left off. So she's thinking of all of you now while you're all at the NSSEA trade show in Orlando, Florida.

I know that Norma and I definitely wanted to be with Joanne and Lynnie and Ginger in Orlando this week for the Orlando NSSEA Trade Show. I know we were especially looking forward to sharing time and congratulating our good friend Brian Roberts for finishing up his chairmanship of NSSEA this year. We were really looking forward to that party Friday night (tonight). Brian, please know we'll be with you in spirit and you are all such close friends! We are just sorry we weren't able to be there for you as you end a very successful year; so again, congratulations. Congratulations to all the new board members that are moving through the chairs and all the folks working on the committees so diligently, and all of the staff as this is a work of passion for all of you. Tim Holt, you owe me a Southern Comfort & Seven. (Have a couple for me!!)

I want to close with a short story that might connect some of the dots from a few weeks ago when we were watching Norma’s helicopter lift her up towards the sky to take her to UIC. I had a phone call message on my cell on Thursday morning from our good friend, Bill Milam. He was just calling to check up on Norma and saying that they were continuing to pray for her each and every day, which we still so much appreciate. I could hear the emotion in his voice. His voice cracked. He hesitated and then went on saying that if there's anything that he and Laurie could do, they would do it and I know they will. My reason for bringing this up is so many of you have shared that same emotion and same care, and that is what keeps us going - your comments and your thoughts and your prayers. That's why we continue to ask for your help.

Bill shared a very personal story with me at the beginning of January this year when our Northwestern Mutual group gets together each year at Starved Rock to share how our year went and how we're doing with the balance of life. Bill was telling me he was driving down the road all by himself in very bad weather. The clouds were covering the entire sky and it was raining, but he was just driving down the highway alone in his car, singing his praises to Jesus and for all of God's blessings. He was just having a great time all by “himself,” even though the day was gloomy. Then something happened he will never forget! He shared with me that he'd never felt anything like this in his life. He said a small hole in the sky opened up and a brilliant ray of sunlight shone down through the clouds directly on him. There was no other sunshine to be seen, but it was only on him. Bill said that he felt that it was the finger of God parting those clouds, thanking Bill for praising Him, and thanking Him for all the blessings that He has given Bill and his family over the years as a financial rep with Northwestern Mutual and also in Bill's investment business; which is flourishing, and rightfully so.

I wanted to share that story because it's the same feeling I had when I took the picture of Norma being lifted up in the helicopter to go to UIC. It was that hole in the sky that gave me the peace to know that, no matter what, things were still going to be okay. For those of you who are unsure if there is a God, I can definitely tell you there is and I hope you find Him. Life is a much better place to be with that belief than thinking that there is nothing after this. For those of you on the fence, I encourage you to get on the right side with God and just do the best you can. Thanks again for all your prayers and thoughts. I will continue to keep you posted. Take care and God bless.

Love,

Ken & Norma

kenireland2@aol.com

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