The MRI also showed positive things. It looked better than his previous MRI done 2 days after the accident. The radiologist that read the MRI does not know Samuel. And his assessment was that Samuel has a SLIGHT brain injury confined to the putamen and caudate (part of the basil ganglia) portions of his brain. These areas control motor function. His ventricles (the portion of our brains that is filled with fluid) showed a SLIGHT increase in size near the caudate and some slight lighter shading in part of the putamen, indicating that those portions of the brain have had some cell loss. But the entire rest of the brain seemed to have returned to NORMAL! Did you get all those great words in there? SLIGHT! NORMAL!

Our neurologist also went over the results. He said it seemed strange that the damage to Samuel’s brain was so focused since his entire brain was without oxygen. But he confirmed that most of his brain looks completely normal. His ventricles are only slightly enlarged near the motor portions of the brain and even then, it is very slight. The neurologist actually scrolled through all the scans 3 times before he was able to pinpoint what the radiologist had seen. The damage in the caudate shows up as a slight decrease in mass and the putamen has small portions that are just a little lighter in color than the rest of the brain. This indicates that the cells there aren’t quite as dense as in other portions of the brain, so some cells have been lost. But his overall assessment was this: first, he never expected Samuel’s MRI to look as good as it did; second, there had been no additional damage or brain shrinkage since his first MRI; and last of all, overall his MRI was VERY PROMISING! Did you get those last words? VERY PROMISING! His neurologist said he wouldn’t dare venture to say what Samuel will or won’t be like in the future, but he couldn’t have asked for a better MRI considering what he has been through.

After all was said and done, I summed it up this way. Basically, Samuel’s brain looks perfectly normal except for a slight loss of cells in the portion of the brain that controls motor function. And even that area shows very little damage. So for spending 20 minutes in a canal, Samuel’s brain is amazingly intact. The neurologist fully agreed!

WOW! That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. I can tell you that Samuel can see, that he can hear, and that he understands what we are saying and tries to respond and interact with us. But it is so very nice to have it confirmed. And who knows, maybe with a little hyperbarics and a lot of hard work and therapy, some of those dead brain cells can be replaced with the stem cells we are stimulating and we can bridge the gaps in his brain and bring him back to us. We can only hope that’s what God has in mind for him because it won’t happen unless He does. But it was a VERY encouraging day!

Love,
The Jewkes

Well, Friday he slept from about 3:30 pm until about 12:30 am and there was nothing we could do to wake him. So you can imagine what Friday night was like :)! And Saturday night wasn’t any better. I think he slept a whole of 3 hours that night. But he wasn’t as upset as previous nights, so that was good. Then last night - he slept like a baby! Hooray - because mom was getting pretty beat! We’ll hope he gets back on a good schedule SOON! But I’m not sure that will happen because today he slept on the way to Salt Lake, took a 2 hour nap at hyperbarics and slept most of the way home. I’m pretty sure that’s the whole problem is all the driving messes up his sleep cycles and when he hasn’t had enough sleep, you don’t want to mess with him! Oh, well. This is week #4 of hyperbarics, so it won’t last forever.

Otherwise, we’re good. We still get smiles here and there and Samuel has been healthy in every other way. We’re just pressing along and seeing little improvements along the way. As long as we’re going forward, we can’t complain. Tomorrow, Samuel has an MRI and Thursday a pump refill. Otherwise, we have a regular schedule.

Thanks again for all the prayers and please keep them coming.

Love,
The Jewkes

P.S. It’s been requested that I reexplain hyperbarics, so here’s the quick version. Samuel spends 1 hour in a glass chamber in which the air pressure is 1 1/2 times the regular pressure of the atmosphere. While in the chamber, Samuel breaths only pure oxygen. It’s an old therapy that is used for many things, but brain injury isn’t normally one of them. So in that sense, it’s experimental for Samuel. The theory is that at a higher pressure, the body can take in more oxygen than usual and the oxygen will not only be carried by the blood cells, but also by the plasma in the blood. It is also theorized that oxygen can reach the fluid in the brain ventricles during treatments where it normally never resides. This increased oxygen can help clear out dead cells in the brain and stimulate unused cells to generate and grow and become used cells. The hope is that Samuel’s brain will use the increased oxygen to repair lost connections and use cells that normally would remain dormant. In addition, Penn State recently did a study that showed that hyperbarics increases the number of stem cells in a patient’s blood stream and stem cells are the only cells that can become new brain cells. See the article here http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/dec05/O2stmcls.htm. So that’s the short of it!

The last 2 days of last week, however, were completely different. Samuel just sat in the chamber and watched a movie both those days. He has literally NEVER done that before in the nearly 50 treatments we had done. He wasn’t sleepy or anything. He was just content to lay and enjoy the movie. It was such a drastic change, but a very nice one!

So since Samuel has been moving around in the chamber so much, my grandma has volunteered to start sitting in the chamber with him at least Monday thru Thursday for now. It has gone well the first 2 days, so that will be nice.

Samuel is also sleeping much better at night. He does wake up several times a night, but he normally goes back to sleep without any help. It makes for him being in a much better mood if he’s had enough sleep at night. So the past week and a half has been very nice. Some days, he’s been so very smiley that nearly anything makes him smile. But nearly everyday, we can get at least a smile or two no matter what. It’s very nice. He has even been smiling at his therapists and one noticed that Samuel likes to tease people. We knew that already since it makes him smile the most, but it was fun to see someone else notice it.

I’ve had all of Samuel’s therapists and several people at hyperbarics comment to me this week on what a huge difference they have seen in Samuel. Even Tom said this week that Samuel has changed so much in the past few weeks that it is amazing. Samuel has just been calm, happy and very aware. They are all changes we hope to see continue to increase. He is moving his arms more and more, he is getting some control over his neck and is now working on his trunk muscles. It also seems that he is bending his left leg more and more and he already bends his right leg all day long. The arch in his back seems very diminished and he used to curve his back so that his left side was tighter than his right. The past week, he seems to be curving it the other way. We are just excited to see things loosening up.

We’re still working on getting him eating and are afraid that is going to be quite the undertaking since Samuel just doesn’t like things in his mouth. But he doesn’t drool anymore, so we know he’s swallowing.

This week will be just a basic week of hyperbarics & therapy. We have several doctors appointments next week. But this week will be fairly slow (as slow as driving to Salt Lake everyday can be :)).

Keep praying! We’re so grateful to everyone for their faith in Samuel. We are so very blessed to have him in our lives. He is such a cute and sweet little boy!

Love,
The Jewkes

So hyperbarics came very late in the day that day and we even made it back in time for parent teacher conference for the other kids in Paradise that night.

Samuel smiled the first day in the chamber (several times). I hadn’t realized how very much he’d improved until we actually put him in. During his prior treatments, it was nearly impossible to even get his attention while in the chamber. But now, he will pay attention to me the entire time he is in there. He will watch me show him books or toys or sign to him and make faces at him. Everyone in the office also commented on how well he focuses on them and looks at them and how much noise he is making with his voice and how he gets upset less easily. It was nice to hear.

But, Samuel liked the chamber less and less as the days progressed. On Thursday, we had to pull Samuel out of the chamber 10 minutes early because he literally moved himself from one end of the bed to the other, moved his feet up to where his head should have been and his head down where his feet should have been and then rolled off the bed and up against the glass. Boy, he was mad! Today, he nearly did it again. I’m afraid he’s not going to be able to be in the chamber on his own much longer because he can move around so much. But I can’t go in with him because I’m pregnant, so we’ll have to figure something else out.

We’ve done pretty good this week. The whole family got the flu - except Samuel and I (knock on wood). Samuel is definitely moving his arms and hands in a more purposeful way. He can touch and push toys and books that you put in front of him. He can’t grab things yet, but just the fact that he can aim at things with his hands is a huge improvement.

Cute things this week were when I put my car keys in his hand and then asked him if he’d seen them. He thought that was pretty funny. And everyday when we drive the car, I say “let’s go” and then we take off and he smiles. Then I say, “stop” and I stop pretty hard so he can feel it and he smiles again. Tonight I was chasing Ben and carrying him back to see Samuel and Samuel smiled for that, too. Samuel even rocked with me several nights this past week when he couldn’t sleep. He just sat with me and relaxed in my arms. That is rare for him. But I seem to be finding more and more ways to calm him when he’s upset.

The bad thing this week was Samuel was more agitated than he has been lately, but I am certain it’s all the stress of driving and being gone all day, every day. He was much better over the weekend. I’m afraid we’ll just have to deal with it.

Thanks for all the faith and prayers! Don’t stop now!

Love,
The Jewkes

Anyhow, he went over Samuel’s original MRI with us that was done just 2 days post accident. He concurred with what we had heard before that the only damage really visable was to the basil ganglia. He did see some indication of damage in the thalamus also, but was uncertain how extensive it may or may not have been. Basically, he would classify Samuel as having Quadriplegia Athetoid Cerebral Palsy. Just a really fancy way of saying that Samuel has abnormal reflexes due to a lack of oxygen to his brain. He did not see any indication of damage to the “thinking” portions of his brain. But he did indicate that because the thalamus relays information throughout the brain, it could affect his thought process, memory, etc. In other words, Samuel probably has every memory of before the accident intact, but there is really no way of knowing if his brain can access those memories because doing so would involve the thalamus.

Anyway, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but we do see signs that he understands things and is still “there” cognitively. He just has a difficult time telling us that because his brain doesn’t control his body correctly anymore. However, the neurologist said he wouldn’t make any predictions about whether or not Samuel would ever crawl or walk or talk again because there just is no way to know right now. He said it’s definitely possible. That is the FIRST doctor who has EVER said that to us. So we like him :)!

We scheduled for Samuel to have another MRI the end of the month. That should tell us more about how his brain has changed since the accident. It won’t give us definite answers, but it will at least give us some idea of exactly what was and wasn’t damamged.

We also are starting hyperbaric treatments again tomorrow. We will just make the drive from home after having therapy in the mornings. It should make for really long days, but we saw so much improvement in Samuel the month following our last round of treatments, that we feel we need to give it another try.

Otherwise, not much more to report. Samuel was very smiley yesterday and I’ve been using sign language with him a bit. It seems now that if he’s crying and I sign to him, “don’t cry - laugh” he will cheer up a bit. Sometimes, he will even smile at it. One thing is for sure, he smiles more for Ben than for any of us. Those two have a connection that is far deeper than I ever understood. They are still inseparable even though they can’t even communicate with each other. It’s pretty neat!

I think Samuel can say “car” “go” and “hi”. His speech therapist thinks he can say “dog” and “cow”. Doesn’t really matter, though, I just love hearing him try. That’s one thing I’ve noticed lately is just how very, very much I am thankful to have him in my life. He is definitely a little angel and we all love him so very, very much!

Well, enough for tonight…Like I always say - keep praying! We still need it!

Love,
The Jewkes