3 Months Later......Did I Jinx It?

Wednesday June 5th - The day we bought Jake a skateboard to celebrate his successful year, but also as a means of transportation home from school.

Thusday June 6th - I blogged about it, talking about all he overcame during that school year and how we were celebrating having our son back after dealing with PCS for so many years.  I did actually wonder if I was overdoing it after I wrote it.  I mean, he had definitely come a loooong way in his recovery, but as many know, you never fully overcome PCS, you just wait out the physical symptoms, and then learn to deal with the residual affects.  Plus, Jake would always have anxiety, but that day I was focusing on the PCS recovery.  No matter, we were happy and Jake had overcome many obstacles and fears over the year.  It was a good day.

Sunday June 9th  - Jake broke his leg (tibia and fibula, compound / open fracture).  He was told that he cannot ride BMX for a year and was in for a long recovery.

Today, Sept 20th.
I cannot pinpoint why it has taken me so long to write about this experience.  Possibly because I felt initial guilt about saying we overcame PCS while so many others are still wading in a cesspool of symptoms.  Or possibly because I may have jinxed Jake's success by "bragging" / blogging about it.  Or maybe because thinking back I can still hear the sirens and feel his pain as I watched him deal with the pain and anxiety.
But I do need to write about it, for myself, but also to celebrate what did come from the experience. We saw evidence of Jake's ability to move past his anxieties and actually use some of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy strategies he had learnt over the years.

June 9th - Jake came to me to ask if I would take him to the mall to buy him a pair of new shoes.  I told him I was working around the house all day and not going out, so he decided to go to Shell, the local skatepark to ride.
No more than 15 minutes after he left I got a phone call from a stranger saying that Jake was at Shell and had broken his leg.  My first question was "Are you sure?  He just left the house!" My second question was "Did he hit his head?"
Thankfully, his head was fine , but he had broken the two bones in his leg and was in shock.  When I arrived I was glad for the shock, as it meant that he could not feel the pain.  He even asked me if he had to go to school the next day!  "No Jake, you are off the hook for schook for quite some time buddy!"
He was so brave, lying there in the bottom of the concrete bowl, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. I am thankful for the older BMX rider who ripped off his Tshirt to wrap around Jake's leg to stop the bleeding and held it there without moving for 20 minutes until the paramedics arrived.   And to the mom who gave us a bottle of water and a facecloth to cover Jake's eyes.

Long story short, Jake had 2 surgeries and spent 8 days in hospital on a morphine and antibiotic drip.  And the whole time he asked question after question, to whoever was near him, the paramedics in the ambulance, the nurses in ER, even the orderly pushing his bed to the OR.  "Will it hurt when they operate? Will I feel anything?  Will I know when it is over?  What if I walk up and can feel it?  Will they put me sleep before they give me a needle?  I want to be put out for everything!"

Jake was finally putting all the CBT that he thought was irrelevant, to use.  He did not even realize it but by asking those questions instead of internalizing the anxiety, he was using the coping strategies that he had never been able to relate to his own anxieties.

So, I now realize that I  did not jinx things for Jake.  Instead, I accept that everything happens for a reason and the reason for this happening was for Jake to see that he is actually able to cope with much more than he ever thought possible.  And maybe to encourage him to slow down and spend some quality time with his family....lol, a mom can dream can't she?

August 13th - Jake made a speedy recovery (I credit the 8 days of bedrest in the hospital) and got his cast off earlier than expected, on August 13th.  He will still need physio and cannot ride BMX again until the spring, and unfortunately the new skateboard has yet to be ridden.  His life had revolved about riding so this is a difficult time for him and his social life.  But that is all ok, a bone heals.  A head does not always. 

The Instagram "Fresh Kicks" pic....sorry, I had to!

Can I Be Any Prouder / Relieved / Thankful?  

(Insert each and every one!)  A Long Overdue Entry.

It has been many months since I posted, for several reasons.  Mostly, because things were busy, (we moved, I am sitting on a Mental Health Committee, working etc).but also because things were good and I did not have too much to report.  I had talked about the wonderful supports that Jake was receiving at school and how he was attending with minimal complaints.  We had put Jake in the lower level rather than an academic level, not because we thought he was incapable of doing academic, (although with his PCS he actually could not)  but because we needed him to feel successful and confident enough to actually attend and participate. 

Fast forward through the school year to now, and he is almost finished grade 9.  And I could not be more proud of Jake and all he has overcome.  Jake was fearful of moving up to the next level after we realized he was coping well and we started talking about the possibility of him moving up.  However, one report card and some very encouraging teachers later and Jake has moved up in most of his subjects.  He had a rough start to the year, even having his Ipad taken away due not using it for its purpose ( apparently it is not for surfing the net in class or instagraming which "new kicks" you are sporting!!! lol).  But he has since earned it back after the teachers saw that he was actually trying in class.  If you remember, grade 8 was tough for Jake, and he had given up trying at all. So this was big!  Of course we had the odd setback, with some absences due to illness that made it hard to go back after missing work (Jake was worried that he would get flack from the teachers about missing school and being behind, which of course did not happen, they just said they were glad he was better and offered their help!  A very different experience from his grade 8 year upon which his fears were based). 

Then there was the week he had to miss due to a hit to the head!  That was a scary one.  He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and took a random football to the head while working on his bike at the park.  For anyone else they may not have had any issues, but with having had multiple concussions already we had to take precautions.  And indeed Jake did feel dizzy for two days and had to do his stretching exercises that he learnt at MMTR as well as take a week off school with no TV, no computer, no riding.  A major challenge for him, but worth it as he recovered fully with no long term symptoms at all.

Dare I say that Jake has beaten PCS?  He still has trouble staying on task and may always have to struggle to find ways to pay attention, and he is not the most organized student, but he is managing to complete assignments and hand in decent work.  He has overcome most of his anxiety about school, and even though he has never actually used his locker or engaged in any extra curricular activities, he has completed a successful year and gained confidence in himself.  And he found something that interests him, he is looking at going into the trades program at Bateman, specifically welding or manufacturing.   Can it get any better? 

Actually, YES it can, as I think we finally have our son back! My son is Jake, and he is fun to be with!  Sure he is still a typical teenager with minimal time for the family and more rude words than I like, but when he does hang out with us he is the quirky kid with a thousand accents that can always make us laugh with his rather outrageous behaviour. 

Welcome back Jake, I hope that you understand how far you have come and how proud we are of you!

Jake with his new skateboard to ride home from school.  His "way to go" end of year gift.  (And also a strategy to get him to ride home from school rather than rely on a drive!  And it is small enough to put in his backpack so he doesn't have to worry about it being stolen or stored in his locker).....

An oldie from 2 years ago, but this is one thing Jake loves to do, help build the dirt jumps every year.  He does not even ride them, he just likes to work on them with the boys.  He has earned well over his 40 hours of mandatory volunteer hours for high school.