Barry Updates in Boulder

WEEK SIX

Barry was awakened early on Monday morning for a liquid breakfast and then was not allowed any food or liquid for the remainder of the day. He was getting ready for his operation in the afternoon

The day continued with an early morning conference between the family, the doctors, therapists and also Barry. It was at this time that I believe Barry was beginning to accept the fact that he was going to San Jose for a short time. Barry always refused the idea of leaving Boulder for any period of time. And it was this refusal and the great support system that Barry had in Boulder that the family also finally accepted the fact that Barry could go through his outpatient rehab in Boulder rather than in San Jose. The decision was made by the family and the rehab staff that two weeks in San Jose would be good for Barry. And probably for the family too. This time period immediately after leaving the hospital environment can be traditionally rather traumatic and depressing. And Barry will have a support system in San Jose which will always be there to help him through this transition. A lot of other things were also discussed. No drinking alcohol for a year. No driving a car for one to three months. And all other decisions will be based on tests and measurements when he returns to Boulder. Barry has been consistently adament that he is attending school in the fall which is only a short time from now.

Barry was moved back to the Boulder Community Hospital and Tikie, Wayne and Joyce cleaned out all of his pictures from the Mapleton Rehab room.

The operation was scheduled for 3:30 pm and was delayed to nearly 5:00 pm. The operation was for an hour and a half. And there was no bone flap available. Whatever they saved was in like ten pieces and Dr. Bolles was not able to use it. Dr. Bolles made the comment later that the shattering of the bone flap was not done during the operation but from the fall. Without the bone flap, they closed his skull with some sort of plaster and wires and smoothed it over to mold to his head. As Barry said, "Like rebar?" The operation was successful, his stay in the recovery was fine and everything went well until he was moved up to his room.

The pain began. Apparently, the normal procedure is to administer some kind of pain killer IF pain exists after the anesthesia wears off. Well, pain began to exist but a lot more pain than was expected. They began to give him morphine but it was doing no good. Before giving him larger doses of morphine, they wanted to know if something more serious was wrong. So they took him for a CAT scan. While waiting for the results of the CAT scan, Barry was getting morphine but in small doses. And his pain became INTENSE, so much so that not everybody could remain in the room. They eventually upped the dose and after three hours the pain subsided. As a result of an occurrence two days later, there was an additional drug administered just prior to his pain subsiding that may have been what actually reduced the pain rather than the morphine. It was an anti-inflammatory. He had a severe head pain on the following Wednesday which was relieved after administering this same drug. Dr. Bolles believed that some nerve endings were agitated and was actually the cause of the pain. Whatever, the pain is gone. And the CAT scan was negative.

Wednesday afternoon Barry was released from the hospital and went home to 9th Street. But not after getting that scare with a severe head pain again. He felt fine in the morning. And the day before, he walked all around the halls of the hospital and felt fine after spending the major portion of the day sleeping. And then this pain came which obviously was going to jeopardize his leaving the hospital. They gave him this anti-inflammatory and not 30 minutes later, Barry was up and ready to walk the halls. Just at that moment, Dr. Bolles walks in with the understanding that Barry was experiencing pain again. Dr. Bolles gave his OK to leave the hospital with some additional information and cautions while he is away from the hospital. Barry was ecstatic. We all walked around the hospital again and visited the ICU once again. They were all very ecstatic.

As a sidelight, Pam, the head neurology nurse, mentioned to Barry that she would like him to come and visit when she is instructing the nursing staff. She had been using Barry as a prime example for instructions to her nursing staff on treating severe head traumas. And she thought that it would be good for a lot of the nurses of which a lot of them attended to him to see one result of their fruits of labor.

As a summary, Barry spent two weeks in the ICU, an additional third week in the hospital, two weeks in inpatient rehab and a sixth week recovering from the bone flap operation in the hospital and at his home in Boulder. Barry then spent two weeks in San Jose doing a transitional rehabilitation and visiting with friends and family. He subsequently returned to Boulder and enrolled for the fall semester at University of Colorado. During this same time period, Barry was involved with two months of outpatient rehabilitation. After a little over ten weeks from the accident, he was cleared to drive again. Joyce and Jerry returned in November to serve Barry and his friends a Thanksgiving dinner. And the whole family returned in December for a very gratifying GRADUATION from the University of Colorado.

Joyce, Wayne and Barry arrive at the
San Jose airport from Boulder, Colorado
Bill, Cherry and Jessica greeted Barry in the parking lot