We were moving along so predictably. Making progress and very comfortable in our routine. Rob doing all his therapy. Progressing each week; continuing his drive for improvements. Well things changed and calm became chaotic! I guess that’s how this goes. There’s always something new coming up and making our lives “interesting”!!

Insurance decided, because you know they are the experts on medical situations, that Rob had had enough inpatient rehab. Yep just like that. They say you’re out of here and you have a couple days to figure out what happens next. Luckily we had already been discussing this and had done some homework ahead of time. After inpatient rehab comes post acute brain injury (PABI) facility. This is a bit longer-term and less hospital oriented. More of real world tasks to get ready to eventually transition to home. Spencer and I had toured several of these places. And discussed with Rob quite a bit. There is one PABI that we really liked more than the others. Their model is a bit different and we really felt it had lots of benefit. The place is called: Centre for Neuro Skills (CNS). They have several locations in Texas, including one in Bee Cave (about 40 minutes from our house for all you non-locals). Unlike other PABI facilities, CNS separates residential and clinical locations. So patients live in residential areas. Actually in houses or apartments in real neighborhoods. And then they are transported to the clinical setting every weekday and stay there from 10 AM to 4 PM. So they get a lot of clinical hours. And they simulate an actual home situation while they are in the residence. They actually have to participate in making their own meals, doing their own laundry, etc. On the weekend they go to the grocery store to shop, and go out and do activities in the community. Obviously they get help as needed for all the domestic work. But it really builds skills and strength doing real world tasks. So it’s like therapy in the real world rather than in the gym! Sounds great, I hear you say…what’s the big deal? Ah… it’s never that easy. At that point, we started a dance. The dance is between insurance approval, medical evaluation, and bed availability. I won’t bore you, but it was a nightmare. And right in the middle when it looked like it wasn’t gonna work, we had to do a whole Plan B: pitstop at skilled nursing facility investigation. Yup! Nightmare, it was! In the end, we tweaked the approval dates, we agreed with an alternative location, we escalated insurance approvals, and we ended up with a plan for Rob to transition to the Dallas (Irving) location of CNS. And that happened today.

Phew. I’m really needing a day or two to decompress. In addition, just processing emotionally what it means to be separated during this next phase by a 4 Hour drive. And to not have the visitors nearby that can support Rob. All things have trade-offs. And these trade-offs were pretty big. But we put on our big boy/girl pants and made them. We think it’s the right decision. But it’s not easy!

So that’s where we are, boys and girls… Rob in Irving, Rachel and the boys are in Austin. We are hoping to be able to visit him. They do allow visitors. Just with coordination to make sure the activities are not interrupted. In fact, Tracy, Rob’s oldest sister will be visiting this first weekend. This is a huge win and we really appreciate her ability to hop on a plane to spend the weekend with Rob. I’m sure he will appreciate it. If others want to try doing a visit, we definitely would encourage it. But probably a good idea to just coordinate with us first. I’m going to try to put together a little calendar that we can all see to make it easier.

So that’s our chaos… I mean, lives… for now. Hoping all of you are doing well. Please take time to hug your loved ones! Sending hugs to all of you from our family.