Final Update - Monday, June 9 @ 10 PM
Good evening everyone,
Jeff finally has come home. After checking out of UNC Hospital, Jeff arrived at home today around 2 PM. After many visitors this afternoon, he is very tired and sore but thankful for being home. Jeff will start his therapy on Wednesday and will see his hand specialist on Friday. As most of you know from his video he plans on preaching this Sunday morning for Father’s Day. I know he will be excited about being back in his pulpit.
Please continue to pray for him. He will start a very long road of physical therapy and exercises this week to help build his strength back up. It looks like it could be a while before he get’s full use of his left arm again.
Thank You again for all your prayers on his behalf. (God answered them). Thank you for all the calls, cards, flowers, gifts and visits to Jeff while he has been out. He looks forward in seeing each one of you in the future.
Again as I mentioned in the subject line, this will be the final update that I will write on Jeff’s behalf. I would like to thank each one of you for your kind words to me for writing the updates. My prayer when I started doing the updates was to be a blessing to Jeff and his family by helping keep everyone updated on Jeff’s condition. In the mean time I was blessed with all the kind emails back to me thanking me for writing the updates. Thanks again for all your prayers.
God Bless Each One of You.
Ronnie Jones
Update Sunday, June 8 @ 9 PM
Good evening everyone,
Just a quick update on how he is doing tonight. He is in good spirits and ready to go home. He’s so ready to get home. He has walked several times today and now he is pretty tired. He wanted to know how the services went this morning and wanted each of you to know how much he misses preaching and being your pastor. He looks forward to seeing each of you on Wednesday night.
Again continue to pray for him. He is going to start therapy next week and he is really looking forward to being home. Please if you come to visit him please be considerate of the time that you stay. He needs rest as he goes thru his therapy sessions.
Thanks again for all you do and have done while he has been in the hospital. He loves each of you very much.
Update Saturday, June 7 @ 11 PM
Good evening everyone,
I wanted to send out a quick response to everyone that Jeff had a much better day today. He only had to do 1 therapy session. He is scheduled for 1 session Sunday afternoon as well. His spirits were much better today and he was able to deal with the pain much easier than yesterday. He is really excited about coming home on Monday.
Thanks again for all your prayers.
RJ
Update Friday, June 6 @ 10 PM
Good evening everyone,
I am just getting home from the hospital from seeing Jeff. He had a very tough day of therapy. He had to show the doctors he could perform different task before they will allow him to go home. The good news is he passed all the test, the bad news is he is really in a lot of pain tonight. Please pray that he will have a night of rest. He needs the rest to help build up his strength. Please continue to pray that he will be able to go home on Monday. I know he is ready to go.
I will update sometime tomorrow after I go up to see him. Have a great weekend.
RJ
Update Thursday, June 5 @ 6 PM
Good afternoon all from stormy Oklahoma City. Sorry for not getting a lot of information out the last couple of days but not a lot has changed with Jeff. He is doing his therapy sessions 4 times a day and is worn out when he gets finished. I spoke to Rose today and she says that his walking is improving and he is learning how to do things on his own despite having to deal with his injuries. He also had a church staff meeting today with Mark, Travis and Trevor. The rumor is that if he continues to improve he might get to go home Monday. Please continue to pray for him. He hurts all over and his stamina is not very good but he is getting better.
Thanks again for everyone who has called, come by and sent cards. The family really does appreciate it.
I will update again sometime tomorrow night after I get home and get to go by to see him. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.
RJ
Update Wednesday, June 4 @ 8 AM
Good morning everyone,
Sorry for not posting an update last night. I actually was up to visit him last night and did not get home till late. Yesterday was a tough day for Jeff. He had 4 therapy sessions and he was hurting all over when I got in to see him. He asked for his medication early so he could try to go to sleep. Another issue he is having is not getting a good night’s sleep. This is a problem because now he is already tired when he gets up. Please continue to pray for his left arm and shoulder, it hurts and he still has very little use of his arm. Bottom line is it could be a while before he regains full use of it.
Please remember if you do go up to visit him please try to be a brief as possible. He appreciates the visits and you know he wants to talk to each and everyone of you, but he also needs rest. His down time in between sessions is a chance for him to get rest. Again thanks so much to all of you for your prayers and calls, emails, cards and visits. It means a lot to him and his family.
I hope to have something posted sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening. Thanks for all you do. We love each and every one of you.
RJ
Update Monday, June 2 @ 10 PM
Good evening everyone,
Not a whole lot different to report today. Jeff did his physical therapy today and he continues to make a little bit of improvement everyday. Nothing has really changed on his arm and shoulder; he still has very little to no use of his left arm at all. The doctors continue to say that the use of his arm should improve as his swelling goes down. Please continue to pray for him as he goes thru his therapy to help improve this situation.
Thanks again to everyone for your continued prayers.
RJ
Update Sunday, June 1 @ 5 PM
Good afternoon everyone,
I just got off the phone with Jeff and Rose. He continues to improve every day. He has gotten up several times today to walk around his floor. He has had a few visitors come by to visit and now is flat worn out. He is trying to stay off the strong medicine except at night to help him sleep. He has eaten fairly well and continues to want to try to do more and more each day. He is going to need special prayer tonight. His nephew Justin (my son) is in charge of watching over him tonight. Pray that Justin doesn’t do anything to hurt him such as push him off the bed, trip him while he is trying to get up or stays asleep tonight when Jeff needs something. (The boy could sleep thru a nuclear bomb attack).
Thanks to all of you again for your prayers and calls and emails to Jeff. He now has his computer and is beginning to start to check some of his own emails.
If you are planning on visiting him please understand that he starts several hours of therapy everyday. If you go during the day he probably is not going to be there. If you go late he is probably going to be asleep from the therapy. Just wanted to give everyone the heads up.
Have a great evening.
RJ
Update Saturday, May 31 @ 9 PM
Good evening everyone,
Tonight’s update is going to be rather short. I just got off the phone with Rose and Jeff and not a whole lot has changed since yesterday. He is very tired from a long afternoon of PT. He is very sore and very tired. He continues to improve on a daily basis. Mark Cash is there with him now and I am sure Mark is going to give everyone more information on him tomorrow morning at church. Please continue to pray for him. He has a long road of therapy ahead of him. I know he can’t wait to see each and everyone of you.
I am only going to update his progress once per day the rest of the time he is in the hospital. I am out of town over the next few days and I am only going to get to talk to him during the evening hours. I will post the update sometime after 8pm. If something changes or something important happens I will update immediately.
I would like to thank each of you for your continued prayers and also the feed back you have been given me for the updates. I appreciate your kind words.
I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your weekend. Hope to see all of you soon.
RJ
Update Friday, May 30 @ 9 PM
Good evening everyone,
I am now in Jeff’s hospital room with a “live update”. He had his first day of PT and it worked on him pretty good. He has had a little Bojangles chicken tonight. I thought I would bring him a little piece of heaven. Instead of me telling you just about the same as this morning I thought I would let him take the time to tell me what to type tonight. As you can guess he has broken it down in 3 points. “Can you believe that”?
1. I have taken a long time to reflect on things. I am thankful that our church has the caliber of leaders that when the leader himself is unable to perform his duty we still keep on keeping on.
2. I’ve thought about our present, that I have a building committee that is checking when I am unable to check. That I being out of my office have not hindered the construction of the building.
3. I’ve thought about the future, I look forward to the day that I’m healthy enough to get out of here. I’m so sorry that this has happened. I was not trying to be careless, yet I recognized that God is Sovereign. I believe that He was fully in control when I had no idea what was about to happen.
I thank you for all that you do to make our church go forward. Thank you for loving me as you pastor. Thank you for all who have tried to take care of my family in my absence. I Love each one of you.
Your Pastor
Thanks again for all the prayers, calls and cards that all of you have offered up. There will only be one update tomorrow. I will update sometime tomorrow night.
Thanks for everything,
Ronnie
Update Friday, May 30 @ 10 AM
Good morning everyone,
Jeff had a fair night last night. He was a little restless and was in a lot of pain. He was very tired from having to answer all the questions that the doctors keep asking him all day. As I mentioned last night he is in a new room on the rehab floor. We also found out that he will probably be in the hospital for another 2 weeks. You can guess how that made him feels. Jeff was up early this morning, got a shower and had a little something to eat. (Chris Faulkner stayed with him last night and told me he had my favorite food (Lance Toastchee crackers and a Coke “Breakfast of Champions”). Today he is going to start his rehab. Rose just sent me a text that they will have him up today doing things till around 2 o’clock.
Again I know everyone would like to come visit him but I am asking each of you to please do not come. He is not ready for company. He gets so tired so quickly. I saw him last night for the first time in 2 days and he was just flat out worn out. He drifted off to sleep while talking to me. Please continue to pray for him. He got a little frustrated with the news about staying in the hospital another couple more weeks. He hates the neck collar that they are making him wear and you know he can’t stay still for long periods of time. As you know patience is not one of his most glorious attributes. He loves each and every one of you.
Thanks again for all your prayers.
Ronnie
Update as of Thursday, May 29 @ 5 PM
Great News everyone,
Jeff has now been moved from his trauma room to a rehab room. His new room number is #7341. He has had several specialists come in to speak to him today. They will now come up with a plan to help him get started with his rehab process.
I had a chance to speak to him on the phone today and he is defiantly getting to be like his old self. He told me he would be back in the pulpit in the next 2 weeks. I told him I hope that he was correct. The next several days are going to be tough as I have already mentioned before. He has to have therapy on his arm and shoulder, both hands and his right foot. He also is working with a speech specialist to help with his throat issues after they took the tube out.
Please continue to pray for him. He has asked me to tell everyone thank you for all the phone calls, cards, flowers and prayers that have been offered up on his behalf. He also would like to thank everyone for being so considerate in not coming up to visit him (He says he looks bad, I told him I agree, but that had nothing to do with the accident). He is in a lot of pain and he does not feel good at all. He is having a tough time now with being very stiff and not being able to move with normal movements. I really believe that sometime this weekend or at the first of next week he will be well enough for all of you to come visit him.
Thanks again to everyone for your thoughtfulness during this time.
Ronnie Jones
Update as of Thursday, May 29 @ 9 AM
Good morning everyone,
I just got off the phone with Rose and Brother Fred Caraway. Bro. Fred stayed with Jeff last night. He said that Jeff was real antsy but over all did really well. They now have taken the blood pressure boots off his legs and he has started eating solid foods. He has had a bath and finally had his hair washed. He says he feels a lot better. He finally has got a chance to see himself in a mirror and now realizes how bad he got hurt, but he also realizes how blessed he is to still be here.
He is going to do his first rehab today. Pray that he does OK with it. The next few days are really going to be very tough on him.
I can not say thank you enough for all the calls, emails and prayer on Jeff’s behalf. I know he looks forward in seeing each and every one of you.
I will send another update sometime late this evening.
Ronnie
Update as of Wednesday, May 28 @ 7 PM
Good evening everyone,
Here is a quick update on how he is doing today. Jeff had his first little bit of food and drink today. The goal here is to get him on a more solid diet so they can give him stronger medicine for the pain without knocking him out. The doctors also helped him stand up for the first time. He got very dizzy but did OK. They plan to start this evening with some physical therapy on his arms and hands. Again the doctors are very pleased with his progress.
Jeff is beginning to get more and more aware of what is going on. He is very agitated with wearing his neck brace. He is also very agitated with having to lie in bed. He continues to wake up for little bits of time every hour gets a little testy and then goes back to sleep. We are hoping as he starts taking the new medication he will be able to be more alert and be able to start having visitors.
Please continue to pray. Thanks for everyone being so considerate of not coming to the hospital to visit him. When he is able we will let everyone know it’s OK to come. Again the doctors have stressed to us the importance of him getting rest in between his rehab workouts. This will be the last update today. I will let everyone know tomorrow how he did tonight first thing tomorrow morning.
God bless each and every one of you.
Ronnie
Update as of Wednesday, May 28 @ 8 AM
Good morning everyone,
I just got off the phone with Rose. Jeff had a restless night last night. He is now beginning to get more coherent and agitated because of the neck brace and his left arm and shoulder not being able to move. He now knows what happened and knows how badly he has been injured. Rose got word this morning that Jeff now has a fracture on his right foot. They are going to be putting on a boot for the fracture. Jeff was not able to eat anything last night. His throat was hurting way too much to swallow anything. He was able to have a few sips of juice only. He is hurting a lot and his left arm and shoulder is giving him the most problems. The plan today is to start with some therapy and to hopefully getting him up on his feet.
Thank you again for all your prayers and phone calls. I will update everyone later on this
afternoon or evening with his progress.
Update as of Tuesday, May 27 @ 7 PM
Hello everyone,
We have great news. Jeff has been moved to a private room at UNC. He is now in room #5326. Jeff has continued to improve through out today. He has sat up in the bed
(w/ assistance) and is going to try to eat a little bit of food tonight. The doctors continue to be pleased with his progress. The thoughts are that by the end of the week, they might move him over to the rehab floor to start the rehab process. We are so relieved that there was no nerve damage on his left side of his arm and his shoulder.
The family has asked to please give Jeff a few more days of rest before coming to visit. We will email everyone when he is feeling up to talking to folks and having visitors. Now that he is in his own room cards are more than welcome and would be greatly appreciated. The doctors have told us that the rehab process is going to be very tough on him. He is going to need a lot of encouragement to get him through this.
Again Rose and the girls want to thank each one of you who have called, come by and prayed for him. Please continue to do so.
The updates tomorrow will be later because of me traveling out of town. I will continue to post how he is doing on the website through out the week.
Thanks again for all your prayers.
Ronnie Jones
Update as of Tuesday, May 27 @ 1 PM
Quick update on Jeff,
He rested fairly well this morning. He is now complaining about his shoulder and arm a lot. He is actually rather bossy about it too. I told him I was not a paid nurse and I was doing the best that I could. He then made the comment that I was an ugly nurse. Doctors are very pleased with his progress. The plan is to start sometime today or tomorrow some type of rehab. Rose and Stacie are up in the room with him now. I hope he treats them nicer than he did me. (Just Kidding) The Lord continues to answer prayers. Please continue to pray. If he continues to make progress he probably can start seeing some folks by the end of the week.
Thanks again to everyone. Your thoughtfulness and kindness are so appreciated.
I will provide another update later on this evening.
Update as of Tuesday, May 27 @ 7 AM
Good morning everyone,
I wanted to give everyone a quick update on Jeff. He rested fairly good last night. He woke up several times last night complaining that he was not very comfortable lying in bed. He even had his little smart remark about already being tired of being in the hospital. He is also still complaining a lot about his left shoulder and arm. As I mentioned last night they did perform surgery on his right hand and the surgery went well.
The doctors have just come in and updated me on his condition. They are pleased with his progress so far. They do not plan to do anymore surgeries so they are going to try to start him on some light foods later on this morning. The doctors have looked at his MRI and they think as of now the issue with his left arm and shoulder are due to the swelling of his nerve endings that control his muscles on his left side. They think for right now they are going to wait to see how the nerves recover by themselves. The doctors are also going to let the specialist look at the MRI to see if there is anything else that they might have missed on the MRI.
Thanks again for all your prayers and please continue to pray for him. I will try to update everyone later this evening.
Update as of Monday, May 26 @ 8:30 PM
Hello everyone,
Jeff just got out of surgery and is now in recovery. Hopefully, he will be back in the room around 8:30 to 9PM. The doctor said the surgery went well. They operated on his right hand. The nerve is intact and the nerve covering was damaged during the accident. It will take time for the nerve to regenerate itself.
The MRI results on his left side will not be available until tomorrow. Jeff continues to make slow improvements. Please continue to pray for him and the family.
I am asking everyone to please not come to the hospital to visit him yet. The doctor says he needs to rest, and he needs to sleep. He does wake up for a few minutes at the time. He knows he is in the hospital, but he does not remember what happened. He recognizes everyone that he sees, but he just does not remember who he is talking to because of the medication. Every one of you knows him well and if you come up to visit he is going to try to talk to each one of you. He loves each and every one of you. Hopefully, he will be able to have regular visits by the end of the week.
I will have another update for everyone sometime tomorrow morning. It looks like he is going to be here a little while. I know he is going to be excited to see each and everyone of you.
Thanks again for all your prayers, phone calls and support. We love each and every one of you.
RJ
Update as of Monday, May 26 @ 4 PM
Hey everyone,
I wanted to give everyone a quick update on how Jeff is doing. Jeff has
now been moved to another room #5324. We have just found out they are
getting ready to take Jeff to surgery to do work on his right hand. We
have not found out anything from the MRI yet on his left shoulder. The
surgeon said they would look at the MRI when they work on his hand. I
will update you more as soon as we get word that he is out of surgery.
Please pray.
Thanks
Ronnie
Update as of Monday, May 26 @ 10 AM
Good morning everyone,
I want to first of all thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers for
Jeff. Thanks for all the ones that have come by or called to check on
him. Here is an update as of now. He continued to improve throughout
yesterday and last night. His swelling continues to improve and his
color continues to improve as well. He is still in ICU and will probably
continue to be here today. He is scheduled to have a MRI done sometime
this afternoon. Over the last 24hrs he has started complaining about
pain in his left
shoulder and numbness in his left hand.
The MRI should help answer
questions about what is wrong there.
As soon as I get some more information I will pass it along. Please
continue to pray for him.
Again I am asking everyone to please understand that while he is in ICU
that he will not be allowed visitors.
Thanks again for your prayers.
Ronnie
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