Berlyn's Hospital Stay 11/22/12-12/4/12

During the time at the hospital, Berlyn was in the PICU for 5 days. Immediately after the accident she was paralyzed on her left side, which is why she could not hold her head up. Her head began to really swell. Even though this was the case, her vitals were stable. They had ruled out a neck or back injury (thank heavens!) and took the neck brace off. Little by little, day by day she started to try to talk more and more, still gibberish and slurring her words though. They then started her on occupational and physical therapy. We were given exercises to do with her arms and legs and head to see if we could get her strength back.

After 5 days in the PICU and her vitals staying stable, they moved us to another floor, which meant it wasn't life threatening. We were again RELIEVED! The doctors wanted to see more movement in her left arm and leg before they would discharge us. Every few days she would get another CT scan to see the improvement (if any) of her skull and brain. After a few days the bleeding in the brain had stopped and the swelling started to go down. Everyday she looked a little bit more like our Berlyn because the swelling was going down slowly. She started talking more and more and getting her personality back. She kept working with physical therapists and occupational therapists and speech therapists. She kept getting stronger and stronger. By day 9, a Friday, she was almost walking again, but we weren't being discharged until they knew if they were gonna transfer us to Phoenix Children's Rehab Center. On that Monday we were told that our insurance had denied the transfer because she was already walking again (in a week mind you) and that they were confident that out patient physical therapy would be enough. We weren't sure how we felt about this, but we couldn't really do anything about it. At least we were going HOME!

During our stay at the hospital we had MANY MANY MANY MANY people come to visit Berlyn to which we are very grateful. We felt so loved and blessed that so many people cared. We felt all of the prayers on our behalf and I know that is one of the main reasons we were able to keep it together.