JAILBREAK!!!!

Justin, Christian's brother here.  Mom let the cat out of the bag that I've been the man behind the curtain on most of the posts.  Not that I was trying to remain anonymous, but didn't really figure it was that big a deal who was writing, only that you all were getting the details you wanted and needed :-).

Christian and I spent Friday evening together and we went on quite an adventure!  I arrived about 5:30pm to spend the evening and first night shift (8:30pm - 2:30am) with Chris so that Jessi could go to Park City for some R&R and to run a 10K race in the MUD on Saturday (I forget the name of the race at the moment).  Chris and I had talked earlier in the week about maybe trying to get out of the hospital for dinner or a movie, and when I arrived Chris was excited to go.  We transferred him from bed to wheelchair, grabbed a few essentials and headed for the car.  Spencer, Dad and I were able to practice car transfers (from wheelchair to car and back) with Christian earlier in the week, supervised by the PT staff.  It's actually quite easy getting in and out of the car.  Christian does most of the work and I just give a little help with balance.

Once in the car, we headed for Olive Garden at Fashion Place Mall as Chris was in the mood for pasta.  We didn't even get off the IMC campus onto 5300 South when Chris felt like he may have to go #1 :-).  I replied that this would be no problem, we could just pull into a parking lot on the way and take care of business.  We got onto 5300 South, then turned South on State Street when Chris stated that he thought we may need to turn around altogether.  It appeared that the urge to go #1, had quickly turned into the urge to go #2 and we didn't have the proper essentials to take care of that in a parking lot along State Street :-).  We flipped around, headed back to IMC, transferred to the chair, rode the elevator up to floor 12, rolled back to 1216, buzzed the nurse and took care of business!  That took about 30 minutes.  I thought Christian may have been a little deflated, not to mention tired, after that so suggested we could just do dinner in the cafeteria downstairs, but he was still game for a trip outside the hospital, so we headed for the car again.

We didn't get to Olive Garden until just before 7:00pm and it was a ZOO!  Quick change of plans and we headed to Macaroni Grille across the street.  Christian had the Pasta Milano and I had the Sausage Salentino, preceded by some bread dipped in oil, vinegar & pepper.  I have to say that I pretty quickly mastered the "two fork" way of eating dinner.  I used an alternating bite method, one for Chris and one for me which was actually a nice change from my normal method of shoveling in as much food as possible, as quickly as possible (this was also Christian's method of eating prior to the accident).  Chris agreed that this is a more enjoyable way to eat dinner, although not convenient if you're in a hurry, which we weren't. 

We got back to IMC about 9:00pm and Chris got into bed for the night.  Unfortunately with us being out a little late, he didn't get his meds until close to 10:00pm so he had some muscle spasm issues early in the night, but otherwise the trip out was a BIG success!

Saturday we figured we were on a roll so we headed to Sugarhouse BBQ (one of Christian's favorites) for lunch.  Misti and Kris, Physical Therapists from IMC, came along so we could practice navigating some real world obstacles.  After a lunch of beef brisket, pulled pork and baked beans we headed over to Sugarhouse Park.  Chris walked (with a little help from Misti and I, mostly just for balance and to keep him from falling and cracking any more vertebrae) through the parking area, up the curb, across the uneven grass to the volleyball court and back.  As you can imagine Christian was pretty tired after this and fell asleep in the car on the way back.

Overall, a nice weekend!