Year Two of the Cafferky Family “New Normal” is rapidly coming to a close
If you don’t know what I mean by “New Normal”, please take a moment to read this note before you catch up with me. I am thrilled that I am getting reconnected with so many old friends and business colleagues. However - I just don’t want to tell the “debbie downer” (that is what my kids call me) part over and over again. This way - we can all just address it head on (or not), but at least I don’t feel like I have to tell the story again. So - here is the old post with some new changes. Once you have read this, I’m definitely ready to party with you at LBSS reunion, or we just reconnect and stay in touch.
The Day Everything Changed - August 12, 2007 On 8/12/07, our oldest son, Nick Cafferky, took a running start, flipped into a wave in the Atlantic Ocean on the Delaware Coast of Dewey Houston Street Beach, and broke his neck. A heroic Dewey Beach Guard, JeremyS, breathed life back into him, the team, including brother BobbyS and JimMay stabilized our boy, and then Nick was choppered to Christiana Care Hospital, a major trauma center, where Nick was saved and his journey to overcome his injury began. Nick sustained a complete spinal cord injury - a “C4/C5 Burst”, endured over 4 hours of neurosurgery, where he received a bone from the bone bank (we are certain it is an African American bone so he can continue to claim his blackness despite being an Irish Jew), a couple of titanium screws and a nice titanium plate to fix his broken neck. His spinal cord injury is considered “complete” and, while he does have some use of his arms, Nick is now a quadriplegic. We spent almost two months in ICU in Delaware, cared for by some really great people and living out of a van in the parking lot, with showers and meals provided by the Boarman family, and sometimes wings from the Shaw Family (the hero boys). After seven weeks on the respirator, a collapsed lung and several infections, Nick then “graduated” to “step down” where they prepared him for the move to the Kennedy Krieger Institute, where he would spend five months inpatient and outpatient, working with the brilliant team of doctors and therapists led by Dr. John McDonald, AKA Christopher “Superman” Reeves doctor.During this time, Elisa lived at KKI with Nick during the week, while Mike worked and Brendan went to school back home. On weekends, we did the switcharoo. Although, Sundays we tried to watch football together as a family. We were “inpatient” for two months, which was bearable thanks to some great RTs, RNs and Techs, and Thursday Chik-fil-A with the DeLucas, and also ugly and horrible thanks to the evil Mrs. C and her stepfordchildson. Then, because insurance only paid for 60 days inpatient, we then did 90 days outpatient. This meant driving back and forthe from Great Falls, VA to Godforsaken blighted Hell’spoint, MD for KKI therapy. While all of this was happening, the Langley/Great Falls/McLean community and our family, led by my sister, Wendy and neighbor Nancy, nurtured, fed and contributed lots of money to help defray the enormous costs associated with such a disasterous injury. There were block parties, barn dances, a really fun 3 on3 hoops tourney and an all out “TeamNick” community effort. Our faith in God was strengthened, Jesus remained at our side throughout and continues to travel this journey with us.Not as lazy as he may want you to believe he is, Nick was able to continue his Langley ‘08 Senior year schoolwork, and prepared to actually go back to school on March 3, 2008 where he finished out his senior year, took back the reigns of the Sports Page from his trusted Assistant Editor, Lauren “BFF” March, and graduated on June 12, 2008 with his class and awarded Principal’s Student of the Year Medal. After graduation, Nick decided to defer college for a year while he learns to be more self sufficient and adapt to his “new normal” - a handsome, 6′4″ young man that is paralyzed from the chest down. A remarkable person who never looks back, only looks forward and has not a hint of bitterness or “why me”. Instead, Nick continues to inspire us all by demonstrating that it is absolutely fact that your attitude determines your altitude, and there is no reason to think that Nick’s life will be anything less than the awesome adventure he has always known it would be.During this adventure, we blogged constantly, and if you are interested in the past, you can visit the original “CaringBridge” site that served as our communication medium to all while Nick worked through ICU. You can find this at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nickcafferky. When we moved to KKI, Nick began his own blog to record his view of the journey, and he continues blogging at his site: http://www.nickcafferky.org. We also added “e speaks” a button on his site, or reachable at http://www.elisacafferky.org where sensitive/crybaby/faithful/strongwilled/completelymental/nick’s mom documented the journey from my perspective. This blog also continues today, due to popular demand, which has been a blessed surprise and and great place to work stuff out and give glory to God. We were blessed by the presence of new and old friends, who shared with us our successes and our challenges. There were great reconciliations, amazing new friendships, and sadly, some real disappointments. While our lives continue to be somewhat of a struggle, I can honestly say that (while I would NEVER say that this was a good thing to happen and I wouldn’t wish it on our worst enemy) WAY more good than bad has come out of this, and we are constantly amazed and humbled by the blessings in the madness - our cup surely overflows. Nick is even a freelance sports writing contributor to the Connection newspapers and he will be running the Great Falls Youth Basketball Referee program, with his handy voice recognition software and the most excellent HP system he has set up to make him a productive cub reporter on his way to great fame and fortune.After a year of caring for Nick full time (I had been co-founder of a startup company, Sawteeth, that I had to withdraw from and left poor Paul Dixon to try to sustain our dream), we are just now getting back on our feet financially. I am looking for a job that will enable us to stay in our house in this community that has sustained us so abundantly. We are also waiting to hear from the builders what it will cost to make our home “Nick Accessible”. Everything is pretty temporary right now. Nick sleeps in the old sunroom, the living room is his hangin out space, and we have a lame plastic temporary shower that will have to do, until we can build out a bathroom for him or move to another home. It looks like we will probably end up moving to a smaller home rather than make the changes to this house. I still owe the Foley’s a nice note thanking them for all that they did to propose a solution to us, but at the end of the day, we just don’t have the money. It’s going to be time to downsize CampCafferky. God Willing, we will be able to sell our home for a good price and then find something we can be psyched about and that has potential for being the most comfortable, inviting and party friendly handicapped accessible home in the Langley School cluster (preferably Great Falls). Or - perhaps God wants us to stay here - we will surely know if our money/work compensation situations become more like loaves and fishes. If I can have a “loaves and fishes” year at SAS, and pay off debts, replenish our college funds and then MAYBE, just MAYBE, we could adapt our house. But one step at a time….
That is it. The background. So now you know why Nick is in a wheelchair in all the photos, the unfamiliar settings in the pictures and the plethora of TeamNick shirts and attractive young ladies that are usually surrounding our ManBoy, Nick - including TeeShirtGirl Meredith, BFF1 Lauren and BFF2 Alyssa, as well as the many god-like athletic young men who are Nick’s DeweyPosse - including Von and Austin, studs who love each other in a totally non-gay (or so they say) way, the Langley Hoops team, all of the Saxon Scope Staff (she said “staff” heh heh) and too many other cool people to mention.And year two of the “New Normal” is drawing to a close. I am, well as normal as Nick and Brendan’s mom is ever going to be. But MommaCaff loves her family, her life and we are all pretty bullish on the future. The wind is at our back and the Holy Spirit flies with us. Just as He was with Moses, God is with the Cafferky family. He will never leave us or forsake us. No one will be able to stand against us, all the days of our lives. So we got THAT going for us…..Update June 2, 2009:
*****Nick has Virginia Tech orientation on July 15 or 16th. Crazy.
*****Nick starts his freshman year at VT 8/23/09. Crazier.
*****We are still searching for our caregiver(s) in Blacksburg, to start in August. Please pray thatthis works out just as everything else seems to have come together during this adventure. God has not taken us this far to let us go, now. That, I am certain.
*****I really like working for SAS and the Fannie Mae nightmare is fading into a memory and Mike’s work life seems to be improving every day.
*****Brendan’s grades have been great and he helps out a LOT around here
*****Nick’s caregiver until its time to go away to school is Dennis Murphy.
*****Facebook is where Nick posts now - I think his blog may be waning
*****I posted on my blog (all this) today and i will continue to write and publish to the wordpress and facebook when the spirit moves me
******Special thanks to Ann for being so gracious at the LAX game and thanks a lot to all who accepted my “Linked In” requests.
May God Smile on us all today, this week, this month, this season, this year, until Jesus returns to take us all to God’s big party in Heaven.
In Yeshua’s Grip,
Elisa