I apologize for not doing a post for a couple of days. I had a rough day on Saturday and just couldn't muster the energy.

Emily moves to the long-term acute care hospital tomorrow. As soon as she's settled and I've had a chance to talk to the nurses, et al, I will post good times for visits. I know that everyone is really anxious to see her and that will be much easier in the new hospital.

Emily has been doing much better with her breathing. She had a great five-hour session yesterday and another 4-1/2 hours today. Hopefully we'll have her off the vent very, very soon. She was incredibly active and alert yesterday and today. Her neurologist was very impressed with how well she was tracking people and responding to instructions. She hasn't been sleeping very well at night, so her internist prescribed some meds to help her sleep. She's been very active at night and actually popped her night nurse the last two nights. When Ken and I toured the critical care facility they said one of their first goals is to get patients on a normal sleep/wake cycle because that's very difficult to do in the ICU.

The Flight for Life flight crew came to visit today and brought her a hat and a pin to commemorate her helicopter ride. I'm sure that and the hat Michelle Roark gave her just 3 days before the accident will both be worn proudly during her rehab.

Thank you for all the wonderful comments, prayers, thoughts, love, food and everything else you've all done for us. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends!

Emily finally proved to one of her doctors today that she can reach out and take things from us by reaching for and taking the little bunny her ski team gave her from my hand. He was very impressed. She also had a visit from the neuro surgeon who was on call the day of the accident. He was very pleased to see her facial expressions so normal.

Emily had her best ventilator wean yet today - she went for 4 hours with the last 2 hours at the 8/5 setting - the lowest pressure support she's been able to tolerate. If we can get her to tolerate 5/5 tomorrow she can move on to the trach color. Her new med has increased her activity level significantly although she hasn't been moving her right leg much the last few days. One of the therapists fit her for a soft arm splint and a different hand splint to avoid shortened tendons. She relaxes her left hand most of the time now and will relax the right hand if you let her be and don't futz with it. The physical therapist and I also thought her ankles looks more relaxed today.

My dear friend and colleague Mary came and stayed with Emily for me for several hours today - I actually took a break and went to get a haircut and highlights. Just because I feel like I'm about a hundred years old these days doesn't mean I need to have (visible) gray hair!

Emily worked hard today. She spent 5 hours up in the chair and we spent the first 4 of those hours really working on her legs and ankles. The doctors would never believe me, but I was sitting near her feet in the chair and I swear when I asked her to put her left foot on my knee and push she did it - so hard she was actually able to push me in a chair backwards.

We also watched the very first episode of the very first season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" together and she REALLY watched. Later in the afternoon she and Hannah watched a couple of episodes of Avatar, and Hannah agreed with me - she's really focusing on the DVDs. One of the "floating" nurses that took care of her last week was back at St. Anthony's today and used his break time to come check on her progress - Emily's ability to touch people never ceases to amaze me and Chase your visit meant more than you'll ever know.

The current plan is to move her to the long-term acute care hospital on Monday. Once we get her settled, we hope to establish some specific times for company so all of her friends can come visit. The acute care hospital we've decided to use is Kindred Hospital just north of 19th Avenue at High Street near Presbyterian-St. Lukes Hospital in Denver. More details will follow.

We're through the first critical phase. I'm reading a book my brother Gary gave me that talks about all of the most recent research on the brain. One thing that's clear in the research is that the richer the environment the better able the brain is to heal and "grow." We all need to cooperate to make sure Emily has the right amount of stimulus at the right time. Your love and support are critical.

Ken and I visited the long-term acute care hospital where both her neurologist from St. Anthony's and Craig consult this afternoon. It's a very nice facility. Emily would have a large, private room with lots of space to decorate, so we'd be able to take in her life-size Buffy and Spike (thanks Steve). We met with the case manager, medical director and head of physical therapy. She'd be the youngest patient there, although there is one 17-year old, but that's likely to be true at all acute care hospitals. They're checking with Children's to make sure there isn't an option there as well.

We need to talk to Emily's neurologist at St. Anthony's tomorrow to try and get a better feel for his reservations. She really can't stay in the neuro ICU much longer - she's just not getting the intensive therapy she needs to make progress. At the acute care facility she'd have two sessions of physical and occupational therapy each day and one session with the speech therapist.

Her lung issues seem to be resolving. The meds have definitely thinned the mucus so she's able to cough it up on her own. The problem is she starts coughing and then starts gagging on the trach tube and the coughing just gets really bad. She needed meds to numb her throat twice during the day. She did do about a 4 hour wean on the vent at the lowest settings she's tolerated thus far today without any oxygen saturation issues, which was good. She was really alert this afternoon - able to hold her left arm above her head, give her nurse a "thumbs up," and take the green stress ball from the nurse's hand. She still won't stick out her tongue for them - I hold by my original assessment that she's just sitting there wondering who this idiot is that wants her to stick out her tongue.

Her physical therapist and I have a date to get her up in the chair at 8:30 sharp tomorrow morning. The more she moves around the better she'll feel, so wish us luck.

And some journeys are fraught with potholes and detours.

Over night last night Emily's lungs got much worse. There's no infection, just lots and lots of mucus. She was having a difficult time staying oxygenated today, so they had to not only keep her on the vent but increase the oxygen. After a second chest x-ray about 10:00, they started her on nebulizer, percussor, and a med to thin her mucus. She was resting comfortably by late this afternoon, but it was a very tough day on all of us.

We also learned that she may not be ready for Craig. In order to be admitted to Craig she has to be well enough and have the stamina for 3 hours of therapy a day. The neurologist that's been consulting on her case from Craig doesn't believe she there yet, so he's recommending that once she's stable we move her to a long-term acute care hospital. There are several in the metro area. We'll be looking at one near Presbyterian-St. Luke's in the next day or so. As I'm sure everyone reading this can imagine, this was incredibly disheartening news to Ken and me.

Her regular neurologist thinks that her lung issues are holding her back from making the progress she should be making neurologically. So there's at least some possibility that as her lungs (hopefully) clear she'll be able to show more progress on the brain injury. It's another in what's been a series of vicious circles - her lungs are congested because she can't move around and cough effectively, and she can't move around and cough effectively because she's working too hard to breathe to be able to make progress in other areas.

It's a journey, not a race.

Monday was a day of slow, steady progress. Emiliy was very active and awake much of the day. Her nurse worked with her on some stretches and she followed directions pretty well. She and I watched a movie - Howl's Moving Castle - and she was definitely focused on the screen. Once when I thought she'd dosed off I paused the movie and her eyes opened immediately.

Gary gave me a break for a few hours so that I could visit Craig. It was a huge help and incredibly gracious given that he had a big project due yesterday. The visit to Craig gave me a better feel for our next step, but it was one more sign that this is all real and not a nightmare I'll wake up from. When I got back to St. Anthony's, Gary and Emily were playing a game where he'd hold one of her green (of course) stress balls where she could see it, and she'd take it from his hand. Very cool.

Emily's pulmonologist has a plan to get her off the ventilator, so we're making progress on that front as well.

You know that you've been doing blog posts at incredibly strange hours when an 8th grade boy tells you. Brendan, I promise I'll try to do better.

Mrs. Tanya asked about Emily sitting up in a chair. At this point the nurses have to move Emily from the bed to the chair. She's not able to get out of bed and make the move herself. Today though she was able to sit up in the chair and not just lounge back, which was an improvement over yesterday. She also seemed ready for more stimulation, so we've added watching dvd's to our repertoire of music and reading aloud. When I left this evening, Emily and her dad were watching Firefly. All of Em's DSA friends are very familiar with Firefly. I think the rest of you should discover it. It was a very short lived TV series from Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame, that was a western set in the future in outer space. Typical Joss Whedon - great writing, great cast, very thought provoking.

Emily continued working on getting off the ventilator today - she did a 5-hour wean at a pressure support of 10 - we're trying to get to a pressure support of 5, so we're making progress. Her respiratory therapist and I have a plan, and as many of you know I'm fairly goal oriented.

I'm going to do the post at a reasonable hour tonight and then go have dinner with Ken, Hannah and my brother Gary. Gary's been with us all week and he's been a huge help.

Emily had another good day. She did a four-hour wean on the ventilator this morning and was breathing very well. Nice and steady with much better volume that she'd had before. Her internist was "pleasantly confused" by her successful performance today. Both he and the neurologist were pleased. They'll continue the wean tomorrow and her neurologist has prescribed another medication to help wake her up a bit more for as soon as she's off the ventilator.

She was awake and focused much of the day today. The nurses got her up into a chair for about 3 hours which is great. Sitting up in the chair is a lot more work for her and it's really good for her lungs. All her work during the day wore her out and she was sound asleep when Ken left her about 8:00.

Friday was a very good day - Emily's awake! Her eyes are open and she focuses on people when they come into her room and talk to her. She still has to work really hard to follow instructions - her brain is still struggling to figure out how to tell her body to do things, but she's definitely awake and aware.

She didn't have as much trouble with the coughing yesterday. We think the coughing is a result of a couple of things - first all the crud that was in her lungs from the pneumonia is breaking up and she's coughing it up. Second, she can feel the tube in her throat and it gags her and she's coughing to try to get rid of it. We're going to continue to work really hard on weaning her from the ventilator so we can get all of that stuff out of her throat.

We're very excited and anxious to start the hard work of rehab. Because the brain injury was in the left temporal lobe, which controls strength and coordination on the right side, Emily will need rehab to get everything working again. The purposeful movement in her right leg was a really good sign. We know there will be hard days ahead, but it's so good to have Emiliy back!

Thank you all for your prayers and support.

Yesterday was a bit of a roller coaster.

When I walked into Emily's room a little after 7:00, she opened her eyes and looked straight at me the minute she heard my voice. We got her wean from the respirator going right at 8:00 and thought we had a plan to have her moving towards getting off the respirator.

About 10:00 Emily started coughing and gagging on her trach tube. It got bad enough that the respiratory therapist not only needed to turn off the wean but also increase her oxygen flow. She struggled with coughing and keeping herself oxygenated for most of the mid-day.

Then suddenly around 3:00 p.m. she pretty much stopped coughing, starting opening her eyes, and purposefully moving her right leg, which she'd never done before. So, in the end, the day ended on a good note but it was one of the tougher ones we've had.

The doctors said yesterday that as soon as she's off the respirator we'll move her to Craig to start rehab. It will be good to get her out of the ICU and away from all of the crud that floats around a traditional hospital. We're hoping that if her wean goes well today that she might be ready by early next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

There were some questions in the comments from yesterday, so I'll try to explain what's going on with the respirator.

Emily isn't on the respirator because of her lungs. So weaning her from the respirator isn't a function of getting her lungs stronger, it's a function of getting her and her brain comfortable breathing on her own again. When we first started the process of weaning her from the respirator, the therapists and nurses were trying a more "traditional" approach. Emily would get agitated - her heart rate would go way up and she'd start breathing too fast (kind of like hyperventilating). Sometimes she even needed a little sedation to calm down.

Yesterday we started on a new, much more gradual approach. The respirator is still on but instead of helping her breath she does the breathing and it gives her a little pulse of air periodically to help clean the CO2 from her lungs. In total she was on this new wean regimen for 9-1/2 hours yesterday and she went from pressure support of 15 down to 11. Slow, but steady, progress.

I met with one of the hospital's speech therapists yesterday and she walked me through the levels Emily is likely to go through in "waking up." Right now she's at a Level III - she responds to some, although not all, vocal instructions. She tends to respond to my voice better than the hospital staff, which isn't unusual, and she's refusing to stick out her tongue, which I personally believe is because she thinks it's a stupid thing for a total stranger to ask her to do. What we really need to work on now is getting her to communicate to us on simple things - like nodding her head if she can hear me.

Please feel free to include questions in your posts, and we'll try our best to answer them.

Another day of steady progress. She seemed more curious to me today. Looking at the glowing pulse ox monitor on her thumb through her lashes, feeling the wires from the leads on her chest. She handled the new "wake up" medication very well during the day but got a little agitated in the evening. It seems to me she's taking in what's going on and trying to process it and learn how to talk to her body.

I'd really like to see her off the ventilator by the weekend. I think she'd be much more comfortable. We'll just all have to hope and pray.

If any of you haven't seen the post from Patty concerning Emily's Winter Park Freestyle team and the Rocky Mountain Freestyle competition at A-Basin this last Saturday, please read it. We're so incredibly touched by everyone's thoughts and prayers for Emily. Thank you so very much.

And...all the good thoughts paid off. Emily's sedation was stopped at 7:00 a.m. this morning. For the first time since the accident she breathed on her own - 45 minutes around 9:00 and another 30 minutes around 5:00. She did great both times. Getting her off the sedation and breathing on her own are really important steps in her recovery. She's opening her left eye pretty regularly - peeking at us - and occasionally getting the right lid up as well. She knows we're all with her, although I'm starting to worry that she's going to expect a foot or hand massage every time she gets agitated from now on - those SATs could be exhausting!

We need to say thank you to the Winter Park Freestyle team one more time - Laurie, we see your fingerprints all over this; Ariel thanks so much for finding the ribbon; team thanks so much for wearing the ribbons in Emily's honor, she will be so touched when we tell her; Layla, Mattie and everyone with Rocky Mountain Freestyle, I want to be the honorary announcer at all of your WP events!

Overall today was a pretty good news day. Emily had an encouraging neuro check with her neurosurgeon this morning. She opened her left eye - just a crack, but definitely open - when he asked her to, tried her darndest to stick up her thumb and squeeze his hand, and wiggled her toes. All on vocal instructions. She also had new levels of purposeful movement overnight last night, disconnecting her vent tube from her trach twice. This means that when Ken and I aren't there, her left arm will need to be restrained.

Her CT Scan this afternoon showed no fluid around her lungs, so no need for a chest tube. It did show that the pneumonia is still there and that a small area of her right lung is still collapsed. I was talking to her respiratory therapist and he explained thatt the ventilator doesn't fully inflate her lungs, so it's not really surprising that the small area of her lung that was collapsed two weeks ago is still collapsed. Once she's breathing on her own, it should reinflate without any problem. We won't have the final results of the culture on her pneumonia back until tomorrow, but she seems to be responding to the antibiotics - her fever was under control by the time I left today. The fever is one of the hardest things to deal with (besides the not waking up part obviously) because with a brain injury they worry much more about fever so they put these chilling pads on her to control her body temperature and they'll make her shiver terribly. It's really horrible to watch - I just want to crawl into bed and hold her until she stops. When the shivering starts the nurses give her more sedation to help with the shivering, and then the doctors come by and wonder why they can't get any response to their neuro checks.

It's an incredibly frustrating circle, but by late this afternoon we seemed to have stopped it once again and her sedation was reduced. Hopefully she has a quiet night and another positive check by the doctors in the morning.

Emily developed a fever in late Friday night/early Saturday morning, so they had to increase her sedation slightly and put the chilling pads back on. Her morning blood work showed that she does in fact have another infection. They don't know if it's the same pneumonia that wasn't quite knocked out by the first round of antibiotics or if she has fluid around her lungs that's infected. She has a CT scan of her chest this morning that will help with that diagnosis.

It's very clear now that she knows when one of us is there because we're able to get her heart rate and breathing more relaxed without additional sedation.

While I was at church yesterday afternoon there was a visitor in the ICU - a 17-year old girl who was injured skiing about 3 months ago. She was back visiting the doctors and nurses after making a full recovery. Our new friend Benita, who's son is in the Trauma ICU, took a picture for us with her camera phone. It was very encouraging to see her up walking around.

Emily was agitated most of the day today. They weren't able to start the new medications to help her wake up today, but the combination of consistent very low sedation, the withdrawal of the anti-seizure medication, and possibly a new infection kept her heart rate up much of the day. There was a period mid-morning when she was very clearly asleep - her breathing was slow and regular, her hands and arms relaxed, and her heart rate was very low.

After a day or so of very little, very clear secretions from her lungs, today she had much more trouble with coughing and cloudy secretions. The doctors are doing tests to determine if she has a new infection. The respiratory therapist had to increase her oxygen feed this afternoon and she did much less well without the respirator today. Some new infection might explain this as well.

As many people have said - her body and brain just need more time to heal. Your encouragement is much appreciated.

It occurred to me that we haven't updated "what happened" and lots of folks may not know the whole story.

The weekend of 3/31-4/1 was the last weekend the Winter Park freestyle team would ski together for the season. The kids train so hard all season long, that the weekend was dedicated to skiing for fun. On Saturday 3/31 Emily and her fellow team members and coaches enjoyed new snow on the back side of Parsenn Bowl. On Sunday they were skiing in the terrain park. On their second run in the terrain park, Emily got too much speed going off one of the big table jumps and went really high. Her coach got nervous and skied down to check on her and found her unconscious. A witness told the ski patrol she landed on her feet and feel forward into the snow. From the time she fell until she landed at St. Anthony's was less than 1-1/2 hour - so everyone responded incredibly. She got incredible care on the mountain, at the clinic in Winter Park, and in the Flight for Life helicopter.

This weekend is the final competition of the season at A-Basin, and her fellow Winter Park teammates will all be wearing ribbons in her honor and will make "Emily's run" before the race begins. Let's all think good thoughts about 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

I just realized it's Friday the 13th - I don't think I'll focus on that too much.

Yesterday was a tough day for me so I just couldn't face doing an update last night. The doctors are becoming very concerned and discouraged by Emily's not waking up for following instructions. Today she will be taken off all sedation and they may try a new medication to help her wake up. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Project Hair was successfully completed. It took all day, but we got it brushed out, washed, conditioned and combed. She had the only room in the ICU that smelled like an Aveda day spa. Hannah braided it last night to keep it from getting tangled, and my friend Alan is coming today to put in a professional french braid to try to protect it. Just another example of the many incredible kindnesses that everyone has shown us.

I know that many of you would like to visit Emily. Unfortunately, the ICU just isn't very conducive to visitors. As soon as she's in a room outside of the ICU I promise to post a note that one and all are welcome.

I think Brendan said it best - it's all up to Emily now. She was completely off her sedation for a couple of hours today - lots of moving her arms and legs, stretching and yawning. She just isn't quite ready to wake up. Her MRI from yesterday afternoon showed the "natural evolution" of her brain injury. One of her doctors described it like watching a bruise change color from day to day.

She did breathe on her own for a few minutes today, but she was putting too much effort into breathing so they turned the respirator back on. We'll try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow Shari (her nurse) and I are going to tackle her hair. This impending project gave me an excuse to go to Cherry Creek and hit the Aveda store for supplies - I was actually out and about in the middle of the day! We're going to get the tangles out and wash and condition it. We're also going to try to get her out of bed and into a chair for a few hours.

Hannah has been a big help. She comes to the hospital every afternoon after school and reads to Emily. All three of us have different books going with Emily right now. It's a nice way to let her know we're with her and pass the time, and since we all know how much Emily loves to read it just seemed like the logical thing to do.

Before anyone says anything - this was inevitable. I'm not a great sleeper under the best of circumstances.

Emily was moving around a lot today - stretching her legs, yawning, pulling her left arm away when she didn't want to have her hand held. Her sedation is very low, so she can wake up whenever she's ready. The best news of the day is that her right eye was trying to respond to light stimulus. This is the first time there's been any reaction in the right eye since the accident. Her pneumonia continues to improve and there were less issues with her temperature. So all-in-all continued steady progress.

They put in her feeding tube today - so no more tubes around her mouth and nose - and it will easier to get her the calories she needs to heal.

They did an MRI late Monday afternoon, so the doctors should have a better picture of what's going on inside her beautiful head when they do rounds this morning.

Thanks to everyone who attended the prayer service today. I'm sorry I wasn't there but they hadn't come to do the procedure for the feeding tube so I needed to stay. We know all of the prayers from everyone are helping.

The goal for Emily's medical team this morning was to "wean Emily from sedatives," and they got most of the way there. Thankfully, they were able to control her temperature with Tylenol and take her off the cooling pads, which allowed them to dramatically reduce her sedatives without her starting to shiver and her heart rate and breathing getting too high.

They were also able to take the bolt out of her head that had been holding the pressure sensor, which was a big milestone. This of course left her mother without a number on the screen to fixate on - I spent the afternoon moving between heart rate and temperature. Since I had to get up to check her temperature, it even gave me the closest thing I've had to exercise in a while.

Now that the sensor is out, I had a chance to brush what Sammie from DSA referred to as "that hair, that crazy beautiful hair." Ken held her hand while I worked on it and let me know her grip was getting much stronger. Now her incredibly sorry bun has been replaced with an even sorrier braid. I obviously rank right up there with ER nurses in my hair styling abilities.

Emily was moving both arms today, yawning and showing much more facial expressions. All we can do is wait and pray that she wakes up soon.

Sunday night when Emily was first in the hospital she had a wonderful nurse named Aaron. His job was quite simply to make sure she made it through that first critical night. Tonight Aaron came back to work and specifically requested Emily as his patient. We were all so incredibly touched. Words cannot express how grateful we are for all of the cards, flowers, food, prayers and good thoughts. Special thanks to our neighbor Julie for coordinating all of this for us so that we can focus on Emily and to our families for being there to support us.

Emily had a very quiet Saturday. She started shivering and trying to breathe over the respirator and her heart rate would go way up, so they needed change her medications a bit. The good news is the pressue in her brain stayed very low all day and when it did go up (she doesn't like being given a bath - go figure!), it came down quickly on it's own. All in all, a day meant to remind all of us that this is going to be a slow process.

It meant so much to me to meet the ski patrolman that got Emily down the hill last Sunday. There's really no way to thank him or any of the other people at Winter Park and the 7 Mile Clinic who worked so hard to get her to St. Anthony's so quickly. They were just phenomenal. It also helped to know a snow boarder stopped and was sitting with her after she fell. It's nice to know she wasn't alone up there. All the thoughts and prayers from her Winter Park family mean so much to all of us. Everybody comments on my strength - but I gain strength from seeing how many people care so much about Emily.

Emily had a good day today. This afternoon they reduced her sedative and she moved on her own without any stimulus. She stretched her left leg, shoulders and head. When we realized she was moving we started talking to us and she squeezed our hands and moved her left arm. She was also able to track a moving light with her left eye. When she started to get a little too active and agitated, they increased her sedative to keep her comfortable but not nearly as high as its been the last couple of days. We're hoping for a repeat performance tomorrow.

When she was resting again she looked so relaxed and peaceful - much more like the Emily we all know and love. It felt, at least to me, that a big hurdle had been crossed. I know there will be setbacks in her recovery but for the moment I'm savoring this progress.

I enjoyed talking to her classmates and teachers at DSA this morning. In the next few days I hope to post some of the beautiful things that you have written for her. I'm going to go to her ski team's end-of-season party tomorrow night to talk to her team mates and we're hoping to get some of the great pictures of her skiing posted soon as well.

Emily had a very quiet night last night - and her night nurse told us that she had purposeful response movements in both legs, which is really great news. She was pretty heavily sedated all day today to allow the staff to aggressively treat her pneumonia, but her neurosurgeon consulted with a visiting professor of neurology with the University of Mississippi who told him it's their normal practice to keep young brain injury patients heavily sedated for the first 5 days. Her pneumonia is responding to the antibiotics, so that's another really good sign.

They removed her intubation tube today and replaced it with a trach tube. This will make her more comfortable, make it easier to treat the pneumonia, and it removes another source of infection to her lungs. It's also really nice to see her without those big tubes in her mouth. They'll probably put in a gastric feeding tube tomorrow or Monday.

She's been put on the list for Craig Rehabilitation Hospital - so hopefully she'll be there starting her rehab in 2-3 weeks. It will also be much easier for all her friends that so desperately want to visit her to see her there. We're also counting on all of her friends to help keep her spirits up during what's likely to be a very tough rehab.

Please know that we will be updating this blog as often as possible. If we get tired and miss a day, it doesn't mean there's been a setback or anything bad has happened. It just means that we're getting some sleep for a change.

Thanks again for everything - the outpouring of love and support has been truly humbling.

Barb & Ken

Emily is still resting. She has developed pneumonia in her right lung, so they have had to increase her sedation so that they can treat the pneumonia. Her doctors tell us that we need to get used to these kinds of set backs during this long, difficult recovery, but her neurosurgeon in particular seemed much more optimitistic yesterday (and I don't get the feeling they are naturally optimistic people). I'm holding on to that optimism right now.

Everyone has been absolutely wonderful. We want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers, food, cards and flowers. I also want to thank everyone that is working so hard to help us make this less difficult for Emily's sister. We always knew how special Emily is - it's almost overwhelming to see how many others know it too.

Good Shepherd Catholic School (where Emily went to elementary and middle school) is planning a prayer service for her next Tuesday, April 10, at 2:15 p.m. Everyone is welcome. Good Shepherd Catholic Church is located at 7th Avenue and Elizabeth Street, Denver.

Barb

Hospital Visits

It's wonderful to know how much you all care for Emily. I'm sure she feels it and is drawing strength from it as she fights to beat this. At this stage of her recovery however the doctors at St. Anthony's have asked Barb and Ken to strictly limit the number of visitors to immediate family. According to them it is very important to maintain a quiet environment and limit stimulation to a bare minimum. This has to do with preventing any increase in intracranial pressure which results from external stimulation such as talking. Germs and virus of course are another critical consideration.

Emily's recovery will be long and difficult. There will be a great need for your help in the days to come. Barb and Ken want me to reassure you that they will let you know via this blog as soon as visitors are encouraged. Thanks for your understanding, and thanks again for all your prayers.

Uncle

Contact Person

Julie Thibodeau, a neighbor and good friend, has volunteered to coordinate your many wonderful offers of help, food, dog walking, etc. Thanks Julie!

Julie invites you to contact her at 303.306.7089 jthibby@comcast.net

What Happened?

As you probably know, Emily suffered a severe head injury in a fall Sunday while skiing at Winter Park. She is in the ICU at St. Anthony's here in Denver and is receiving the best possible care.

I'm Emily's uncle. I'm writing this for Barb and Ken - Emily's mom and dad. They are pretty much living at the hospital at this point but as time permits they will be posting regular updates here on Emily's condition. They wanted me to tell everyone that they may not have time to answer individually your many emails and phone calls.

In the meantime I know they are very very grateful for all your prayers and well wishes.