This is going to be a long post:

It’s Sunday. I could only steal about 30 minutes with Travis before having to head out to Murfreesboro. He had just been bathed and had his hair washed, so he was smelling and looking good. Jesse had been by earlier today and couldn’t stay long. Kerry had stopped in and stayed an extra 30 minutes because Travis became upset hearing of his departure. When I left today, he was notably upset. I couldn’t give him a hug because of the way his lines and trach were in the way, so he was agreeable with a kiss on the cheek. Such a sweet kiss, but it set him off. He may have been confused as to why his friends came and stayed for such short visits, or he may have just been agitated.

There’s a recovery scale for coma and brain injury patients, and they enter these different stages in order during recovery. I’ll go over them now, and you’ll see how he fits into it. If any of you saw him during his 5 month coma post-accident, you most likely saw him as a Level I on the Ranco Los Amigos scale. Level I brain injury/coma patients have no response. That’s it, they don’t respond to light, touch, sound, or movement. At Level II, Travis would begin to show a generalized response. He would just begin to respond to the above stimuli, but slowly and inconsistently. Level III: Localized response. Travis would be awake on and off during the day, he would make more movements and begin reacting more to outer stimuli, such as turning to sound or reacting aversive to pain. He starts recognizing family and friends and follow simple, one command, directions. At Level IV, Travis would be confused and agitated. Now, this is the level doctors think Travis is in now. I disagree thinking he is going between IV and V (confused-non agitated). He’s agitated for good reason, not just to be agitated. Saying goodbye is hard for anyone to do, let alone someone who has to stay in a hospital who didn’t even get to see friends for months, of course he’s wondering “Are they coming back..?” and starts to throw a fit. Not to mention that tube sticking out his throat, I’d be pretty mad, too. I’ll explain the difference between Level IV and V, and you can see how Travis is further up on the scale at V. Level IV: Travis would appear to be very confused and frightened. He wouldn’t understand what was going on around him and how he feels, which may lead to him overreacting to what’s going on around him: thrashing around, hitting, or screaming. These spells happen every so often with him, not all of the time. He wouldn’t be able to pay attention for more than a few seconds and have difficulty following directions. He would recognize friends and family some of the time, and he would have to be restrained so he doesn’t hurt himself. Travis hits some but not all of these. He’s more with it than he seems to get credit for, and when he’s feeling well, he’s extremely content, stays with us in conversation, and follows directions very well. Here’s level V, which he falls more under unless he’s having a fit over his trach or feeling uncomfortable, so I’ll use it in the present tense. At Level V, Travis is able to pay attention for a few minutes. He shows signs of confusion and difficulty making sense of things outside of himself, such as the date or why he’s in the hospital. If completing physical tasks, he would need step-by-step directions (i.e. brushing his teeth) He becomes restless when overloaded or when there’s too many people around. Compare that to being really stressed out, too many people in your face and too much going on around you, which you’re not all that sure of to begin with anyways.

So you can see, Travis kind of hovers between Levels IV and V. It’s hard to really assess what he truly knows due to his lack of/poor vision and nonverbal communication. He’s able to answer yes and no, and pick between two things using his arms. He just requires time to process. He can differentiate between left and right. He’s really strong, too. I worry about doing any strengthening therapy on him since he put ice on a nurse’s shoulder one night…hmm… I’ll stick to stretching and range of motion for now. 

I’m getting attached to him. Every day is something new, and it’s always an improvement. He’s changing my life. He makes you want to live and do things. I don’t want to waste anymore time. I wonder if I was in his position if I would be happy with what I had done with my life, I couldn’t answer that with a yes. There’s so much more I want to do both in my life and my career, and I’m making those changes now. You only get to live life once, and it’s so cliche, but it’s so true. You can make mistakes, but you don’t have to live in those mistakes. It’s how you react to them and make a change the directs the course of your life, not those mistakes alone. Sorry to get so deep, but that’s how I feel, and I think that’s how everyone who knows him and has interacted with him, even if just this past week, feel.

Select Rehab will be in tomorrow to evaluate him to see about him coming to their facility. Cross your fingers, it’s right next to Baptist, and one facility of about 2 in the Nashville area that will take someone on a trach and ventilator. 

It’s raining. I went with Brooke this time to see Travis today. She brought Chad who had only known him from shows but never really known him. This was the 2nd time in one week that I got to experience the impact Travis had on people who barely knew him. It’s inspiring. They see his fight, and they only want to see him get better, to improve and beat all the odds that the doctors have against him. They love interacting with him, even if it’s a simple yes or no question. They feel acknowledged and happy to be in his presence. Travis was able to tell it was Brooke who was visiting him and naturally the subject of conversation turned to boobs…..and that heartrate spiked. He’s been steady at about 50 beats per minute. The average adult heartrate is about 60-80 beats per minute which they’d like him that. We got him there. His average respirations are around 15 breaths per minute, the average being 12 breaths per minute. He spiked at about 25. He is all boy, and he is all there with it. He claims not to flirt with his nurse, but then smiles. We all know the truth.

We had a good visit with him, then left, which once again, he’s never happy about. Kenny and I grabbed dinner, and we picked something up for Rose since she’d been eating pizza the past few days. When we got back, it was very obvious that Travis was not happy. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his lips were slightly apart and grinding his teeth. Earlier in the day, he had been moving his lips trying to talk. This time, he was moving his lips and I think he was cussing at us or asking for some help. We tried to straighten him up in the bed. He was slumped so low and his lungs and stomach were being impacted by his positioning. His nurse, Martha, came in and we adjusted him further up in the bed. He still wasn’t comfortable. The trach looked like it was bothering him, his stomach hurt, he just wasn’t having a good time. We left shortly after so he could rest, and it was honestly hard to see him like that and not be able to help him. He’s always in such a good mood and in good spirits, and I like seeing him that way. I had nightmares that night about him being uncomfortable, which of course in my head turned into something worse. I knew I’d be back come Sunday. 

Today, I stopped in to see Travis. It was about a 2 hour visit since starting around 3:30. He does really well between 3 and 6, so that’s a primetime visit. Kenny texted me saying he’d be up around 5:30 so we could go running. (It never happened, we got pizza instead). Once again, Travis was more alert, still responding appropriately. They had tried to remove the trach to allow him to breathe on his own, but after a few short breaths, they had to put it back on.Trial and error, Travis was trying, but his lungs weren’t having it today. The good news was that after an X-Ray, his lungs were looking clearer. His saliva was clear and everything he coughed up was clear. The infection wasn’t as strong as it had been. Travis was fighting it. (shocker, I know). What he was fightingthat he shouldn’t was that he had a trach in. It’s uncomfortable, and the stitches start to itch. They put a mitt on him that somewhat resembles a boxing glove that keeps his fingers covered so that he can’t pull his lines. With Travis, even the arm restraints couldn’t hold him back. Where’s there’s a will, there’s a way, and he found it by slumping his body over near his knees so he hand could reach the lines and pull at them. After 6 times, it was decided to put the mitt on.

We left that night once visiting hours were over. Tonight, I got my first hug from Travis in 3 years.We loved his nurse, Martha. She was so sweet (and hot, and we let Travis know so he could put his game face on). 

Travis had his trach put in at 10:30 am. I stopped by around 1:30. He was sedated and had his arms in restraints so that he wouldn’t try to pull it out. Travis didn’t want the trach put in, but it was explained to him that without the trach, he wouldn’t make it, so his surgery was done reluctantly on his part. They had him hooked up on the ventilator, and he was going to have to retrain himself to breathe through his throat instead of his nose and mouth. It’s not the easiest thing to change after breathing one way for 23 years. He’s had a trach before as noted before, but still. It’s not an easy change. I left shortly after the visit since he was so out of it and needed rest.