Florene Gilstrap here.

Thought I would write some more about our family, in particular, our seventeeen-year-old son, Jason Micah, who is currently recovering from a devastating head injury that left him a shell of his former self.

Jason has only been home from the rehab unit of the hospital for about two months, but his recovery from his head injury has been painfully slow.  There are days where he seems lucid, interested in what is going on around him; on other days, however, he sits there, slumped in his wheelchair, eyes dim and face lacking any sign of emotion whatsoever.  It is almost like he is in his own little world.  It's devastating to see, especially since only five months ago, he was a healthy, strapping teenaged boy who loved life.

Jason hasn't walked since his accident.  He wears plastic and metal braces on both legs; there isn't any guarantees that he will even walk again, let alone, feed himself, go to the bathroom on his own, or even write his name or do all things he loved doing prior to his accident.

Darrin, Jason's younger brother by two years, is, as you can imagine, devastated by what has happened to his big brother.  His grades at school have slipped considerably and he has been getting into trouble by hanging around the wrong crowd.  We are growing increasingly worried with his errant behavior.  We already have more than enough worries on our minds with Jason's recovery; we don't need our younger son adding to the mix!

We also have a six year old daughter, Rosemarie Grace, but we don't see her much: she lives with my mother.  We didn't want  her to see what has happened to her big brother, so we decided (with heavy hearts) for her to stay with MeMaw for the tiem being.  She will eventually learn what has happened to Jsaon, but for now, we don't want her to see the pain we are currently experiencing.

Maybe it is wrong for us to do this to our baby girl, but she and Jason have always had an extremely close relationship with one another; this would only destroy her.  Rosie has always been such a tender spirit.

This weekend was hard on our family.  Jason was extremely belligerent: he didn't want to do his therapy or his exercises.  He cried connstantly, and he tried more than once to hit both his father and myself.  My arms are covered with bruises from where he struck out at me.  Poor Darrin didn't want to hang around Jason because his outbursts terrified him.  He spent most of this past weekend at his best friend Corey's house.

In addition, Jase fell out of his wheelchair when he tried to grab something off his shelf; he hadn't been buckled in.  He wasn't hurt, thank God, but it scared the holy hell out of all of us.  I could only imagine what it would have done to Rosie had she seen her big brother lying on the floor ...

Well, it's time for me to give Jason his breakfast, not to mention, his morning round of medications.  I will write in here again another day; hopefully our week will be a lot better than this weekend was.  Just keep us (and especially Jason) in your prayers; we could really use them! Thanks in advance!

~Florene Gilstrap, Jason's mother.  :(

*to be continued.*