{Karlton Bontrager}

The crushing headache continues. Karlton describes it as one of the greatest pains he has ever experienced. The medical staff keep telling us that it is common for brain injury victims to have headaches. But this one has been continuous for two days. They give him codeine, but Karlton does not indicate any relief. We’ll have to have a conference with a physician today if it has not let up.

Choy-Lang and I arrived at ISIS about 11:00a yesterday morning. By then Karlton had been up to eat breakfast and have a shower. The PTs had also been in to get him to stand. As we headed for his room, the staff told us that he was in a deep sleep. But he wasn’t. He was wide awake and alert.

Soon afterwards, the PTs got Karlton up again. They wanted to make adjustments to a wheelchair they’ll be using with him. He tolerated those adjustments so well that they took him to see the physio-gym, the area where they will be working with him.

This time when they put him back to bed Karlton did go right to sleep. And he slept off and on all day long. Yet, in the end, we think that he was more awake and more alert than he has been. His mind was defintely clearer. And he was more argumentative. He wants some drugs to relieve his pain, but the drugs he’s asking for are recreational ones. Some of the staff take it in stride and joke with him. Others take it more seriously and try to make rational explanations.

Despite the increased lucidity, he still thinks we have access to a car and can get him out of ISIS. He wants so much to go to his place, where his things are. If only we’d give him the keys, he’ll take us there. Can’t you just image this as the plot to some Hollywood movie starring someone like Keanu Reeves. A brain injured patient escapes from the rehabilitation center, commandeers a car, and tears off down the road, having to make 3- or 4-hour rest stops periodically because he is unable to sit upright in the car seat for more than an hour at a time. With the assistance of 3 cronies who help him ambulate one step at a time, he breaks into medical clinics and hospitals to acquire the drugs he needs to fight the pain, yet somehow he’s able to elude the authorities. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

We’re still battling the cafeteria. Last evening, they sent up 2 separate trays for him, and he devoured nearly everything on them. He makes no effort to lift a spoon or cup, preferring that we feed him bite by bite.

Last night Choy-Lang gave him some strawberry mousse. He said that it was good. That was a breakthrough of its own. The ENT surgeon assured us that the nerves to the olfactory sensors in the right nostril had been sheered in the impact of the accident. Karlton would be fortunate if he had smell in the left nostril. And, of course, taste is largely affected by smell. So we were very pleased to hear that he could taste well enough to say he liked the mousse.

Thank you for the many emails, cards, and wishes for Karlton’s recovery. It gives us much encouragement to know that so many people are behind us.