Tuttle’s TBI Recovery

One year later…

One year ago today our entire world was turned upside down. Today is the anniversary of our son Nick’s (JR) car wreck. While the last year has been full of so many hardships for our whole family, today is a day that we are thankful for. A year ago we could not see this far ahead, and had no clue what the next 12 months would bring us. We weren’t even sure if he would make it out of the hospital alive. When he stabilized and left the neuro intensive care unit his doctor basically told us the best outlook they could give us was 50/50. 50% he would remain in a vegetative state, 50% that he would make some kind of recovery. Today, JR is beating the odds. There are still day to day challenges, but he is healthy, well and progressing all of the time. He’s put in a ton of work to get here.

Today is his Alive Day.

JR and I had a great time meeting the crew from Black Rifle Coffee Company.

Family appreciation lunch at the USO San Antonio

I moved to say how much I appreciate our family who we are away from. Lena and Armani are supporting us from afar. Lena works incredibly hard to manage our home, business, and kids lives on her own. Also supporting me with anything that I need while I’m caring for JR. She’s an amazing wife and the best mom to our kids. I’m so thankful for her and our family. ♥️
Chick-fil-A

JR and I visited The Alamo a while back when we had a cooler day during the summertime. Since the weather here in San Antonio has been giving us a little bit of a break and Nick has been a whole lot more mobile without the help of any assistive devices for a while we spent the last couple of weekends visiting the other missions here.

So Lena told me to make sure I took some “before” pics of JR when he got out of inpatient care. He left in patient on 7/18. The before pics were taken on 7/21. The follow up pics were taken on 9/29. It’s hard for me to see all of the progress he is making seeing him everyday, but when I took the latest pictures I was amazed at how much he has changed.

Nick has been putting in tons of hard work to get heal and get stronger. We are so proud of him.

Had a great visit with one of Nick’s shipmates from his previous command on the USS George Washington. Bryan came to see JR when he was still in the hospital at BAMC. He says that he’s blown away at the difference of how much improvement Nick has made compared to a few months ago. Nick was really happy to get to visit with his friend.

The weather here in San Antonio was super nice yesterday, so JR and I took advantage of it and went downtown to see the Alamo. The afternoon wasn’t complete without barbacoa tacos and a Big Red. Later we had a grocery pick-up and had some time to kill. So Nick got some driving lessons with the E-cart at Walmart 😆. There were no casualties 😮‍💨.

Fun in the sun, toes in the sand. 🏖️

JR and I took a little road trip out to Corpus Christi yesterday to get the heck out of San Antonio. We both needed a change of scenery. Nick had a great time taking a dip in water. He laughed unreasonably hard at the waves pushing him down. 😂 Since his injury his balance has been a little sketchy. Being weightless in the water appeared to give him a little confidence to move around more, but he was no match for the waves 🌊 😆. He had so much fun having the waves crash over him.

We topped the day off with some dinner at P.F. Changs. A great day of R&R for us.