Jerome Schaefer's CarePage Posted Thursday, January 04, 2007 at 5:37:38 PM     Alexandria Bay, NY 1000 Islands  Comments  Unique Views 1416/Total Views 1423

Jerome Schaefer of Alexandria Bay fell from a roof last week and suffered serious head injuries. He is my friend Nick's dad and I actually helped with some of the very same roof work a couple weeks back.

Jermone is currently in Syracuse and a special page has been made to monitor his condition. It is updated daily by the family. The URL is below.

http://www.carepages.com/ServeCarePage?cpn=JerrySchaefer

You will need to have an account at the site to see the page. Registration is free and easy. I encourage you to register if you know Nick, Jermone or the family. Over 80 messages have been left for the family already on that site. I am posting todays updates on Jermone along with this news item.

TODAY IS ALSO NICKS BIRTHDAY SO PLEASE WISH HIM LUCK WITH HIS FATHER'S HEALTH. IT'S OBVIOSLY NOT A GREAT TIME FOR A BIRTHDAY.

January 04, 2007 at 09:13 PM EST
(Nick) They just finished up giving him a bath and changing all of his bandages, pads, etc. His breathing has calmed down and he is stable. We're going to get some sleep now and I'll write again in the morning.

January 04, 2007 at 08:24 PM EST
(Nick) We have spent a lot of time in the room with him this evening. They just asked me to leave so they can give him a bath an redo his sensors. His breathing has been too fast so they are trying to calm him again with sedatives. They wanted to keep him off of them but, they need to slow his breathing. They have given him two doses and it has helped a little but it is still high. He has a fever of around a 100 but it is not as high as it has been. It goes up and down and they said that is expected. Right now we are in the waiting room and are planning on going back in when we can. We hope that he will be settled down when we go back in. I will update this again tonight when we know anything. Thank you.

January 04, 2007 at 02:12 PM EST

So far today is going better. My mom and I both spent some time in the room this morning. When we talked with him he opened the eye that isn't swollen and was looking at us. We talked to him and asked him to blink or squeeze our hand if he could hear us. He moved his arm and tried to blink but, because of the swelling on his eye, he was squinting. He was trying very hard to signal us which made us quite excited. Yesterday he did not repsond or move at all so this was a big step. The nurse actually asked us to leave because she did not want him to get too excited or aggitated. They still have not done an MRI and said that they may not for a few more days. The MRI is for his neck and spine but it is not a priority right now. They are more concerned about the brain brusing and bleeding. They are not going to do a cat scan today either. They said they do not want to do too many of them and, regardless of the results they would not make any changes to his treatment at the moment. They said today they were just going to stay the course and observe any changes. His fever has been back and forth because of the pneumonia and the brain injusry itself. The nurse said he is still paralyzed on his right side. Hopefully that will come back when the brusing and bleeding begins to heal. He is still in at a dangerous position with the bleeding. At this point it is still day to day but we were grateful for his responses to us today. We are hopefull and doing ok. Thank you all again.

PICTURE UPDATE: Here is a picture I took one day when I was helping out. This is the structure he fell from. A 2 story barn they were building on RT 12 for the daughter. The ground level of the barn was filled in with gravel. When I took the picture I figured I'd show it someday and be proud of helping with the construction, not sad that someone we care about got hurt.

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