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| I see you!...by Brenda Warner |
AJ found a home where people really care and believe. There is a growing need for long term care for children and young adults. The average age at The Hacienda is 16 years of age. Here children can get the kind of sensory stimulation that they need to improve the quality of their lives, other than what a nursing home for the elderly cannot provide for them. These children have not lived full lives and still see you and have a right to see the world also. they laugh, smile, and feel.
This is a picture of a large mural that was donated to the facility that hangs in an open atrium.
AJ has me, his grandma and his sisters. What I have found is that so many children are not so fortunate. The Hacienda told me, 'I am family now' because I spend so much time there now. I found a new home also.
11/9/11 Here at the Hacienda they will get him up to shower everyday...
the CNA's are amazing! While in the shower, a man named Jeffery came to fit him for a splint on his hand. Jeffery asked him to
open his hand,
and for the first time he responded to a stranger. I asked Jeffery to please document this response because the doctors look at me crazy when I tell them that he is responding.
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| 11/19/11 |
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11/19/11 AJ finally laughed and smiled at our crazy antics....it surprised us all. He was being weened off his ventilator. When they capped his trach, he panicked and started hyper-ventilating. I began imitating him and did not realize that he was listening to every word I was saying. When I started breathing in and out the way he was, and he seen and heard me imitate him, he started laughing and I snapped this picture.
11/19/11 AJ laughs at his sisters joke!
11/19/11 He has a real connection with his sister. This is a special moment not just seeing AJ enjoy our company, but to see his sister tell this joke....my kids cease to amaze me....they are so precious.
You see, I believe in miracles! AJ's sister is a leukemia survivor!
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| 11/20/11 He is ill and taken to ER |
11/20/11 We are not sure why he keeps sweating. It could be withdrawals from all the medication they are taking him off of. It could be that he is unable to control his body temperature and that this part of his brain has been damaged. He cannot tell us if he hurts or is in pain, so we are clueless. His temperature runs high, then he just couldn't keep anything down, so he was taken to the ER.
I receive a call from the nursing home just as I returned back to New Mexico. AJ has been hospitalized. I am at a loss, I live 500miles from the nursing home. I am tired from driving all night, then working. When I left he was laughing and smiling!..........I prayed!
