Christmas Message

The following is a special message from the Foulger family...

We would like to wish everybody reading this blog a very Happy Christmas. The Foulger family has not mailed Christmas cards this year because we are all concentrating on Natalie’s recovery. However we would like thank all of you for all your help and support over the last few months, and particularly send our heartfelt thanks to:

All of the first responders who were at the accident scene in Watertown.

The Neuro, Orthopedic and Trauma teams and all the other doctors who helped Natalie at University Hospital in Syracuse.

The nurses and other staff in Neuro ICU, Neuro step-down, and unit 7A at University Hospital.

The doctors, therapists and nurses at Sunnyview Rehab Hospital in Schenectady.

The organizers and participants in the Benefit Run, the Irish Quilt and the Spaghetti Dinner.

National Vision Center and their employees for their incredible fundraiser.

All of our friends, neighbors, relatives and colleagues who helped in so many ways, with visits, cards and words of encouragement, financial donations, looking after our house (and Stormy!), providing meals, hotel accommodations, etc.


Best wishes for the New Year from all of us!



Marc and Tina, Becca and Mike, Kyle, Al, and of course Nat.

Foulger Holiday Plans

Some of you have expressed interest in the family's plans this holiday season. I will do my best to update you all on whats happening with them.

Al plans to drive up to Watertown this Christmas to be with his family. He will be driving late on Christmas day.

Rebecca came to visit me - she will be here for Christmas Eve and we will drive back to Schenectady early Christmas morning.

Kyle, Marc, and Tina all remained in Schenectady and will be there on Christmas as well.

Natalie has a 'get out of jail free' pass for the whole day on Christmas so we will be taking her to the apartment to celebrate the Day.

I hope that this brief post is informative enought to answer your questions. Let me know if there are any other questions I may be able to answer.

Happy Holidays!

-Mike

Spaghetti Dinner Summary

"The dinners went well on both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Combined we sold a total of 323 dinners. There were a multitude of concerned questions about Natalie and endless good wishes extended to the entire Foulger Family. Cindy Harnas, Mary, Terese and Barb from the H.S cafeteria all donated their time to cook, clean and supervise the kitchen activities. What a lovely and generous group of ladies they are!"

Thanks to Elizabeth Fralick for an explanation of that wonderful night!

A report of grand success!

Natalie has been doing very well lately. She has been exceeding in three key areas - walking, eating, and overall improvement.

Currently Natalie is able to stand up with the help of a special walker. This walker is taller than traditional walkers assisting Nat in keeping her body upright. Therapists stand behind her to observe she is standing straight and push the walker forward, and she is now able to move her feet on her own!

Typically, after every meal, Natalie would have a set amount in her tube-feed because she was unable to provide her body with enough nutrition during meals. She no longer needs a tube-feed after every meal because of her improvements in feeding herself! She does still receive a continuous tube-feeding from 7pm to 7am, however, so she is not yet completely eating on her own.

Starting this past weekend Natalie has been granted passes allowing her to leave the hospital for a few hours at a time. This week the family piled in Al's car and took her for a ride around Schenectady!

More exciting updates to come!

Spaghetti Dinner

There will be 2 Spaghetti Dinners in the SJCS High School Cafeteria to benefit Natalie in her continuing recovery. They are scheduled for this Wednesday, Dec. 13 and Thursday, Dec. 14. Take-outs will begin at 4 PM on both days and eat-in begins at 4:30 PM. Wednesday's dinner will end at 6 and will be followed a t 6:30 PM by the Middle School Christmas Concerts. Thursday's dinner will end at 6:30 PM to be followed by the High School Christmas Concerts and Dance Company. Dinner tickets cost $6.00 per person, 5 and under are free and the Family rate is $20.00. The menu will include spaghettti and meatballs, tossed salad, homemade bread, dessert and coffee, tea or milk. A few more volunteers to help serve and clean-up on each day would be lovely! If anyone would like to help, please contact Elizabeth Fralick at (315) 782-4138.

A Useful Link

Natalie's father just sent me an email with a wonderfully descriptive page about Natalie's current stage, Post Traumatic Amnesia. I urge everyone who continuously reads this blog to visit the link as it paints a brilliant picture of Natalie's abilities and disabilities to this point. The link can be found here.

A Quick Week's Update

This week Natalie continued having stomach problems. As a possible solution doctors have changed her food. She is still receiving most of her nourishment through tube feeding, however, she does continue to feed herself orally. Natalie has been making small steps of progress and will continue to improve as time passes.

A Quick Post

This update is to bring you all up to speed on Natalie's newest 'condition'. Surgeons examined her x-rays three times and concluded that a hematoma had developed beneath her pelvic incision. The doctors decided not to go along with any surgical procedures because the condition will not interfere with her health.

On another note, Natalie's Aunt Ann recently ended her visit to the states. I know I speak for the rest of the family when I say thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. Your presence was greatly appreciated in this time of need.

This weeks update

In case you haven't already heard Natalie has tested out of the coma stim program meaning that she is no longer considered to be in a coma! She does not act any differently because of this and her progress is still slow but gradual. It mainly means that she scored a 20 (out of 23) or higher on her coma emergence test two weeks in a row - she actually scored a perfect 23 both weeks!

Natalie has been good and talkative for most of the week except today. She was very nauseous and quiet today and as a result missed most of her therapies for the day. Doctors suspect her c-diff is coming back and causing the vomitting. As of now they are unsure but I will post an update once her condition is resolved.

A further request

A further request:
As requested before: Please do not just show up at sunnyview. Natalie needs to concentrate on her therapies and rest. It makes it difficult on the family to have to turn people away, but this will have to be done on Natalie's behalf.
Thanks for the continued support.
Gratefully yours
Tina
(concerned Mum)



Please respect the wishes of the family as they are trying to do what is best for a speedy recovery.

Thank you.

Great week!

Natalie has made some excellent progress in the past week. These improvements include eating better portions of food - she will now request food (Wendy's frosty, cinnamon buns, etc.) that she can eat with assistance. She has also been talking a lot more. Recently Natalie has been able to compose more complex sentences, for instance she is now able to say a name (or direct her voice) and then ask a question or tell a joke. Natalie seems more comfortable this week than any previous week. She is able to tell us when she is hurting and what is bothering her and sometimes can remedy the problem herself. She will even ask us to be quiet or stop talking when she needs some time to herself!

Natalie has spent most of her days this week in her wheelchair instead of in bed. When she is in her wheelchair the family includes her in games or tells stories with her. Her speech is becoming increasingly coherent as she speaks louder and is more consistent with her thoughts.

She has been doing very well with her therapies and is making excellent progress from the last time I saw her, two weeks ago.

Natalie still needs to focus her energy on her therapies as she is always exhausted at night. Because of this the family still asks that visitors are strictly limited to close family friends and relatives. Please do not show up without calling the family first. I will let you all know once Natalie is able to have more visitors! Otherwise keep the prayers coming and thank you all for reading the blog!

On a sidenote - The format of the blog will be a bit different. Because Natalie's stay at Sunnyview is somewhat of a 'rollercoaster' I will be doing weekly updates on her status. If something extremely important happens, I will surely break the format. Otherwise, join us next week for more miracles!

Brief update

Therapists began trying to feed Natalie three times a day. This includes very small portions of food (cheerios, orange juice, yogurt, etc.) but will help to get Natalie back into the habit of eating three meals daily. She is not yet able to eat enough on her own to completely nourish herself so they are continuing the tube feeding to remedy that.

Natalie's nausea continued today but she was more alert today than she had been in the past few days (talking more and participating more in her therapies). She continued working on improvements in therapies - including beginning to learn how to use a regular wheelchair (natalies current wheelchair is able to angle her back so she sits back more comfortably and also has a headrest).

I was also told that Marc was able to show Natalie the website for the first time and he read a few comments to her. I look forward to the near future when she will be able and alert enough to read the comments herself - I believe that day is not so far away!

Keep praying!

Update and Goals

Thanks to Marc for today's wonderful post!


Natalie had another minor setback this week when her feeding tube got blocked on Thursday evening. The tube had clogged up before, but this time the nurses could not get it unblocked. Nat missed all her meds that day and the tube feeding as well. On Friday she was taken over to Ellis hospital, a general hospital right next door to Sunnyview. There they x-rayed the tube with dye in it and found that it had pulled out of her jejunum, and had kinked. They straightened out the kink but could not re-insert it into the jejunum because her intestines were in spasms. However the x-rays showed that the blockage between her stomach and her jejunum seemed to have resolved in the last few weeks. It was decided to convert the tube back to a G-tube, in her stomach instead of in the jejunum, and see if she could tolerate that over the weekend. So far so good!

When Natalie is feeling unwell or tired she stops talking, or talks much less. Between her C-diff infection last week and the tube problems and procedure this week she has been very tired, and has not talked as much as before, but when she does talk her voice is now louder and clearer.



The therapists recently gave Natalie a new set of goals for the next 3-4 weeks. The most important of the goals are:

1) Orientation to “people, place and time”: People emerging from a coma have very little short term memory, and can typically remember some information from several years ago much better than they can remember information from a few hours ago. For this reason they have trouble recognizing people, understanding what time, date or year it is, or remembering where they are. Natalie is fairly well oriented to people, she knows each of us and generally remembers her therapists. She is somewhat oriented to place, she usually remembers that she is in hospital, and can pick the right hospital name if given a couple of options. She has more trouble with time, even though we go through the calendar several times a day.

2) Following commands consistently: Natalie can follow simple commands, but is not yet 100% consistent in doing so.

3) Discontinue the feeding tube: Natalie is beginning to eat a few small spoonfuls of soft foods by mouth in the morning, and drinking a little with a straw. Gradually she will be encouraged to eat and drink more with the goal of establishing 3 meals a day and phasing out the feeding tube.

4) Switch to a regular wheelchair and learn to wheel it around herself: One of the goals of her physical therapy is to strengthen and tone her back and stomach muscles so that she can sit without full support. She can then switch from her special wheelchair, which has wrap around support and a neck brace, to a regular wheelchair.

5) Family training for bed to wheelchair transfers: We have a goal too! We are learning how to safely transfer her to a wheelchair, and will learn how to transfer her from a wheelchair to a car, so that we will be ready when the time comes for her to make short trips out of the hospital. Natalie will also be taught to help with the transfers by taking some weight on one leg.



There has been some confusion over the posting about Nat walking. To be clear, she was held upright for a few minutes, without taking any of her own weight on her feet, and was encouraged and helped to move her legs in a walking motion. It took 4 people to do this and by no means was she actually walking. She was practicing movements only. We do hope that she will walk again eventually, but that will not happen until she can straighten her right leg and regain more strength and feeling in her left side.

Happy Halloween

Natalie attempted walking today! She had two therapists and the family to help her walk but kept at it for about 20 minutes on and off. She is not yet able to put all her weight on her feet just yet but is learning to put one foot in front of the other. Natalie enjoyed the weather today as the family wheeled her outside. She has also been speaking and answering questions as she was before her minor setback.

Natalie continues to progress and with your thoughtful prayers will only get stronger. Keep it up!!

Moving uphill

I have been told that Natalie is continuing her uphill progress and is again able to speak very softly. She is not yet talking as much as she was able to before she became sick but should be back to that point shortly. During the time Natalie was unable to speak she used a bit of sign language! I was amazed to hear that she was able to recall that process!

Natalie's therapy sessions are going well. With the exception of the past few days she is now back on track with her sessions and will continue to improve as the days move on.

I will do my best to keep you informed on her progress and know that you are all extremely anxious to hear how she is improving. Please continue to leave comments and encouraging words on the blog as they will help Natalie through the tough times ahead. Thanks, all!

A Minor Setback

Here is another post from Natalie's father:

Natalie has had a minor setback this week, one of those things that can happen when you are in hospital for a while. She has Clostridium Difficile Colitis (known as C-diff), which is basically an infection of the intestines. This is something that can develop when you are taking antibiotics (which Nat was taking for a UTI), or you can get by contact, particularly in a hospital. It causes diarrhea, cramping and flu like symptoms, the cure is a different antibiotic.

At the beginning of the week Nat did make more progress. She wrote “Nat” on a piece of paper and drew a star when asked to. She was also making progress eating little spoonfuls of various foods and drinking orange juice through a straw, which she loved. Unfortunately after a couple of days she vomited the orange juice and as she got sicker she got very tired. Her feeding tube was then disconnected for a couple of days and she has had to miss a few of her therapies. Since she is very tired and feeling unwell she has stopped talking or communicating much, but she does still give an occasional thumbs up or down to questions. Her white blood cell count had been up, but is now back to normal, so her tube feeding was re-started this morning. Hopefully she will recover more over the weekend and will be ready to make more progress next week.

I will update you all as soon as Natalie starts feeling better and improving!

Sign the Irish Chain Quilt from overseas!

I recently received an email from the quilt master's daughter, Colleen Cappon, stating that anyone overseas that wishes to sign the quilt may do so by including a small blurb (it must fit on a 3 x 3 square) and $5 to:

Liz Cappon
14579 County Route 156
Watertown NY 13601

Please get your submissions in or postmarked by November 3rd.

Thank you!

Natalie's voice!

I spoke briefly with Natalie today. The first thing she told me to do was shave my beard - she told me nicely, though, by saying, "Shave, please". I asked her how she was feeling and tried to limit the time I spoke with her on the phone as to keep her energy levels up. She told me she felt ok and I let her know I would be coming to see her soon. I let her off the phone by saying I love you and goodbye and she repeated the phrase to me as well. It was remarkable being able to hear her voice. From what I've been told she sounded much stronger today. Her voice was quiet but it was not a whisper. So far her progress at Sunnyview has been wonderful!


Benefit Run Pictures

Thanks to Jess Weise for creating a page where you all can view some pictures from the benefit run! I'll post the link on the right side of the page. You can also view the pictures by clicking here

Thank you all for your patience with the lack of daily posts. I will be able to post updates more frequently now that I am back on Long Island.

Rehab Breakthroughs!

Today's Post comes straight from Dad!

Natalie has made amazing progress in the last few days, she is now much more aware and is communicating much more. We are very excited by this progress, but please bear in mind as you read the details below that I am describing Natalie’s accomplishments in her best, most alert moments. She is still in the process of emerging from her coma, though she is now significantly further along in that process. She now scores 16 out of 23 on the Coma Recovery Scale. Her response level changes somewhat from hour to hour and day to day, and she still has a long way to go, but she is now consciously participating in her rehabilitation process. Here is what she has been doing:

Natalie can distinguish between different objects, even when they are similar. When shown a hairbrush and a paintbrush she knows which is which, and will brush her hair with the hairbrush.

Natalie can perform single commands, even when they are abstract commands, such as “make a fist”, or “point at the ceiling”.

Natalie can swallow, and is learning to eat little spoonfuls of applesauce and crushed popsicle.

Natalie can talk! Her voice is mostly a very quiet whisper, and can be very hard to hear (Al has the best hearing!) but she can carry on a conversation. She usually gives a small nod or shake of the head for yes and no answers. She can tell us her full name and the full names of all of us around her, and can spell all of those names letter by letter! She knows the name of the road we live on, the name of her college and many other things.

She can count and tell us what 2 + 2 is. She has asked questions about her accident and has articulated her frustration at being in bed or in a wheelchair all the time. And she told her therapist that she does not like apple sauce!

Natalie can read! When her therapist wrote commands such as “stick out your tongue” on a piece of paper Natalie read them and followed the commands.

Natalie is working very hard to get her legs working. Her leg casts have now been split to make them removable, and she only wears them at night. Since her whole left side is very weak she cannot put much weight on her left leg. Her right leg is strong, but cannot be straightened out after being tightly bent at the knee for so long. We stretch her right leg out as much as possible every day. Once a day she goes on a “tilt table”. She is strapped to a horizontal table and it is gradually raised towards the vertical, putting her weight on her feet. She very much wants to do this, but it is very painful for her because her right leg must be stretched as hard as possible and strapped in place. Her multiple daily physical therapy sessions are also very tiring for her, and she is usually exhausted by the afternoon.

Natalie’s left arm now has three different arm and hand splints which alternate during the day, to gradually correct the tight contraction of the elbow and hand muscles. She has regained a very small amount of movement at the wrist. Her right arm and hand work very well and are amazingly strong. She can do a lot with this hand, although she is still subject to some agitated movements that are hard for her to control.

The improvements of the last few days have made a huge difference. Natalie knows who she is, where she is and why she is there. She can tell us what she is feeling, and can understand what she needs to do to continue to get better. With her determination, I am sure her therapy sessions will bring her improvements in mobility that she now longs for.

Benefit Run details

Jill Weise paints a nice picture of the benefit run for those of us who could not attend:

"The wind was alittle chilly, but the warmth of so many joined hearts and prayers was enough for all of us yesterday! There were friends, acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers, young, old, in-between, people who have experienced similar situations, and those who just wanted to contribute in some way. Everyone with one purpose: participate in a time of community togetherness in honor of Natalie and her familiy. It was something to see!

The quilt is also going to be beautiful! Many people enjoyed writing their
messages! It added so much to the day! People were just thrilled to be able
to help in some small way!

When I had mentioned earlier that God could provide us with so much more than we could ever even imagine, I didn't mean in a financial way...I meant with blessings for Nat's continued progress! However, he has done both and I have faith that he will just keep blessing all of you abundantly! I know that many people here feel blessed by the opportunity to be involved."


Thank you for filling us all in! I will post pictures of the event once I can get my hands on some.