St. Joseph Medical Center
Select Specialty Hospital
Phoenix, Arizona
Hey gang, Richard here from Lisa’s room, it’s a beautiful Sunday here in Phoenix. Aft.jpg)
er a chilly (by the standards here) couple of weeks we’re back into the upper 60’s and low 70’s and are able to all go outside again. Making the best of it during the “cool snap” we found a large carpeted lobby fronted with windows that is mostly empty on the weekends. It was here that Michael stood on his own for his mom and dad, memorialized with my phone/camera, and just yesterday took a number of enthusiastic, if not graceful, steps.
Lisa started hyperbaric this past Tuesday; I drove up early to sign the paperwork and be with her as she had the first of 20 treatments. The chamber is about 10 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, the top half is clear Lexan ( the stuff jet cockpits are made of) music is piped in along with updates from nurses and interested observers. Lisa, under the watchful eye of Dr. Fracica, handled the treatment with flying colors and has been green lighted for daily sessions.
So for the rest of the week, Lisa spent an hour in the chamber and her early afternoons in therapy, speech, physical and occupational. Later in the afternoons, Lisa is visited by Yolanda, who ranges her and adjusts her splints, early evening with visits from her rangers, Sandy, Bruce and Laura, Bill or Suzanne (depending on which one isn’t in trial or sick from the bug they keep passing to each other but won’t risk passing to Lisa) and Ken, Vince and Lynn (who’s taken up the calling and leaving her civil practice for prosecution). At night Lisa is visited by her favorite rehab tech from neuro rehab, Heather, who after her day shift, studies with Lisa.
How’s the hyperbaric doing for Lisa? Well, it’s too soon to tell, but so far she had an impressive week in therapy with good nods and a thumb wiggle in response to requests from Maureen, her speech therapist. Lisa’s stiffness due to her spasticity is usually most pronounced in the mornings, I’ve come to expect to have to use all my strength and weight to be able to bend her legs slowly up to relieve cramps and to help her fit into her wheelchair. When Lisa is in pain, or fighting an infection her stiff muscle tone (these folks just refer to it as “tone”) really kicks up.
Yesterday morning (Saturday), when I came to range Lisa’s legs, I found that they were stiff, but noticeably, less than they have been in… well, months. This was true through out the day and into the evening. I tell you that my heart was racing a bit, Lisa was even less stiff this morning. Is this just a good week? Maybe. Could I just be seeing or feeling what I desperately want to? Certainly. So, I took it as a good sign. Last night, Lisa’s nurse’s aide, Jay, who has cared for her regularly since last March told me that Lisa’s tone was much better the last two nights than it was last week. Jay asked me if the medicine in her pump had been adjusted. He said he didn’t know that Lisa had started hyperbaric! Here’s the bottom line, this is the first of four weeks in Lisa’s evaluation period. If these good signs are from the hyperbaric sessions, than we should maintain the improvements and see more. While Lisa was approved for 20 sessions, is she shows measurable (by her therapy team) improvements, Dr. Fracica will continue them. We’ll keep you posted.
On the hom
e front, I want to echo Dad’s thanks to everyone who literally kept a roof over our heads and available for Lisa’s by donating leave time to get us past the time the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) need to approve Lisa’s disability retirement. I’d been told in December when I called OPM that we were looking at 3-4 months, and I just about, well, broke out in a cold sweat! But all of our family’s guardian angels weren’t going to let us down.
One of the many calls I got was from an old friend (fearing that a good deed may go punished, I’ll leave him unnamed) who had worked at the Department of Justice and later at the National District Attorney’s Association. We hadn’t spoken in a while and he told me that in the intervening years he’d come to know folks at OPM and offered to see if anything could be done to expedite a review of Lisa’s case. No promises other than the effort. Guess the effort paid off for Lisa, she was approved in half the time I’d been told!
While these angels were at work, so were others. Our friend at NDAA, Jim Polley put the word out of our need for more leave time and many responded. One of those is an Assistant United States Attorney from Missouri, Michael Reilly, who put the word out on the DOJ network. Lisa ranger Suzanne Cohen reached out to a local judge who’d worked in the federal system in phoenix, he spread the word. I received many calls and e-mails from federal prosecutors all over the country many refusing to give their names, just wanting to let us know they were going to help. And of course DEA Special Agent Rich Kivi and my other “homies” in federal law enforcement in southern Arizona at our drug task force and in the DEA Tucson District Office proved again, DEA takes care of its own.
Folks helped even when they didn’t have leave time to give. A former Pima county prosecutor, now working as an AUSA in Tucson, Chris Cabanillas and others sent enough unbelievably generous help that we’re now able to pay for the large portion of the costs of the genetic testing Lisa and Michael needed that insurance didn’t cover.
The combination of donated hours and a 2 month process instead 4 months means we made it over the hump. Fortunately, donated time we don’t need will go back to the folks who offered their leave. Now, Lisa will receive “interim pay” (about half her current salary) until OPM finishes processing her “approved” application, (another couple of months we’re told) before her retirement officially begins.
I’ve pretty much been in trial constantly since before thanksgiving, and was scheduled to start another 3 week racketeering case next week. As it turns out, the defense lawyers got the case continued so I’ve got a week or so to concentrate on the logistics of bringing Lisa home, oh, and I’ve got a birthday party to plan for my favorite saint, Michael.
Hey gang, Richard here from Lisa’s room, it’s a beautiful Sunday here in Phoenix. Aft
.jpg)
er a chilly (by the standards here) couple of weeks we’re back into the upper 60’s and low 70’s and are able to all go outside again. Making the best of it during the “cool snap” we found a large carpeted lobby fronted with windows that is mostly empty on the weekends. It was here that Michael stood on his own for his mom and dad, memorialized with my phone/camera, and just yesterday took a number of enthusiastic, if not graceful, steps.Lisa started hyperbaric this past Tuesday; I drove up early to sign the paperwork and be with her as she had the first of 20 treatments. The chamber is about 10 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, the top half is clear Lexan ( the stuff jet cockpits are made of) music is piped in along with updates from nurses and interested observers. Lisa, under the watchful eye of Dr. Fracica, handled the treatment with flying colors and has been green lighted for daily sessions.
So for the rest of the week, Lisa spent an hour in the chamber and her early afternoons in therapy, speech, physical and occupational. Later in the afternoons, Lisa is visited by Yolanda, who ranges her and adjusts her splints, early evening with visits from her rangers, Sandy, Bruce and Laura, Bill or Suzanne (depending on which one isn’t in trial or sick from the bug they keep passing to each other but won’t risk passing to Lisa) and Ken, Vince and Lynn (who’s taken up the calling and leaving her civil practice for prosecution). At night Lisa is visited by her favorite rehab tech from neuro rehab, Heather, who after her day shift, studies with Lisa.
How’s the hyperbaric doing for Lisa? Well, it’s too soon to tell, but so far she had an impressive week in therapy with good nods and a thumb wiggle in response to requests from Maureen, her speech therapist. Lisa’s stiffness due to her spasticity is usually most pronounced in the mornings, I’ve come to expect to have to use all my strength and weight to be able to bend her legs slowly up to relieve cramps and to help her fit into her wheelchair. When Lisa is in pain, or fighting an infection her stiff muscle tone (these folks just refer to it as “tone”) really kicks up.
Yesterday morning (Saturday), when I came to range Lisa’s legs, I found that they were stiff, but noticeably, less than they have been in… well, months. This was true through out the day and into the evening. I tell you that my heart was racing a bit, Lisa was even less stiff this morning. Is this just a good week? Maybe. Could I just be seeing or feeling what I desperately want to? Certainly. So, I took it as a good sign. Last night, Lisa’s nurse’s aide, Jay, who has cared for her regularly since last March told me that Lisa’s tone was much better the last two nights than it was last week. Jay asked me if the medicine in her pump had been adjusted. He said he didn’t know that Lisa had started hyperbaric! Here’s the bottom line, this is the first of four weeks in Lisa’s evaluation period. If these good signs are from the hyperbaric sessions, than we should maintain the improvements and see more. While Lisa was approved for 20 sessions, is she shows measurable (by her therapy team) improvements, Dr. Fracica will continue them. We’ll keep you posted.
On the hom
e front, I want to echo Dad’s thanks to everyone who literally kept a roof over our heads and available for Lisa’s by donating leave time to get us past the time the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) need to approve Lisa’s disability retirement. I’d been told in December when I called OPM that we were looking at 3-4 months, and I just about, well, broke out in a cold sweat! But all of our family’s guardian angels weren’t going to let us down.One of the many calls I got was from an old friend (fearing that a good deed may go punished, I’ll leave him unnamed) who had worked at the Department of Justice and later at the National District Attorney’s Association. We hadn’t spoken in a while and he told me that in the intervening years he’d come to know folks at OPM and offered to see if anything could be done to expedite a review of Lisa’s case. No promises other than the effort. Guess the effort paid off for Lisa, she was approved in half the time I’d been told!
While these angels were at work, so were others. Our friend at NDAA, Jim Polley put the word out of our need for more leave time and many responded. One of those is an Assistant United States Attorney from Missouri, Michael Reilly, who put the word out on the DOJ network. Lisa ranger Suzanne Cohen reached out to a local judge who’d worked in the federal system in phoenix, he spread the word. I received many calls and e-mails from federal prosecutors all over the country many refusing to give their names, just wanting to let us know they were going to help. And of course DEA Special Agent Rich Kivi and my other “homies” in federal law enforcement in southern Arizona at our drug task force and in the DEA Tucson District Office proved again, DEA takes care of its own.
Folks helped even when they didn’t have leave time to give. A former Pima county prosecutor, now working as an AUSA in Tucson, Chris Cabanillas and others sent enough unbelievably generous help that we’re now able to pay for the large portion of the costs of the genetic testing Lisa and Michael needed that insurance didn’t cover.
The combination of donated hours and a 2 month process instead 4 months means we made it over the hump. Fortunately, donated time we don’t need will go back to the folks who offered their leave. Now, Lisa will receive “interim pay” (about half her current salary) until OPM finishes processing her “approved” application, (another couple of months we’re told) before her retirement officially begins.
I’ve pretty much been in trial constantly since before thanksgiving, and was scheduled to start another 3 week racketeering case next week. As it turns out, the defense lawyers got the case continued so I’ve got a week or so to concentrate on the logistics of bringing Lisa home, oh, and I’ve got a birthday party to plan for my favorite saint, Michael.
michael
mlwintory@msn.com
