CR Johnson

Monday, Dec. 19, 2005

The sign of the day is C.R.'s eyes are open. But, he has a severe fever and is fighting to come out of the coma. According to Lorraine Johnson, he went from responding to not responding, seemingly too tired to respond to the parade of visitors making the trip to seem him.

Lorraine says she is very thankful for the visitors but is going to have to stop all but a few close family members from being in the room so that C.R. can rest.

Please spread the word that visitors will not be able to see C.R. for a while and to check in with the hospital before making the trip.

The support for C.R. and his family has been amazing as hundreds of e-mails, letters and gifts have poured in. The family appreciates the thoughtfulness and the support.
 
yea freeskier.com has a full update on him. latest news is that hes partially opening his eyes and responding to touch and sounds, but they are restricting visitors because hes started to get a fever and they think too many people coming in and seeing him could be having an affect, but overall hes alot more responsive and everything
 
hey guys it looks like hes doin great........

CR UPDATE...

Monday, Dec. 26, 2005

It has been a very merry Christmas for the Johnson family. C.R.'s MRI came out negative in all tests which led to the removal of the C-collar and the breathing tube.

He is also talking (whispering) with his parents and has been moved out of the critical care unit.

All in all, great news about one of skiing's best. The road to recovery has officially started on the right path.

Merry Christmas, C.R.
 
Yea, he woke up from his coma, but my dad knows one of the nurses in the neurological department at the U of U hospital and they say he may have extensive brain damage and may not ever be the same. But I don't know for sure.
 
doesnt the MRI coming out negative mean that he won't? I really don't know I just thought an MRI was a brain scan...any pre-meds in the house?
 
An MRI can be done anywhere on your body to search for damage to tissue and other things of that sort. A cat scan is something done on only your brain.
 
^thats right.

can somebody explain to me what actual injuries he recieved. all i heard was damage to his brain. but what kind of injuries are we talking here.

and yea. cr will never be the same again. i would very surprised if he was.
 
a negative MRI is a very good start. But more tests still need to be done. Sometimes noticable problems won't arise for a few months.

A girl i went to highschool with was in a car accident and a coma for 2 weeks, and she just needed some therapy, and she's about 95% of what she was.
 
hey ...more updates..............

Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005

C.R. has moved to neural rehab, the last step before going home. This is where C.R. will re-learn how to perform all of the functions we take for granted, such as sitting, standing and walking.

C.R. could be home in as few as two or three weeks depending on his progress in neural rehab.

"[This was] one of our best Christmases. Thanks to all of you for the encouragement," said Rusty Johnson in an e-mail.

C.R. can now read as well, so be sure to continue sending your encouragement to loveforCR@freeskier.com.

Monday, Dec. 26, 2005

Powder's Derek Taylor checks in from Salt Lake City

CR made huge strides towards recovery over Christmas. I stopped by for a visit on Monday and was surprised to find him alert and talking in a whisper. He is moving both sides of his body now, and when I arrived, had just gotten back from physical therapy, where he was working on standing again. CR is already showing the same determination that made him a world-class athlete; according to his parents, he asked the physical therapist “don’t give up on me.”

He was able to recognize me and answered a few questions, but most of his conversation was centered on food. After a week of being fed through a tube, he was obsessed with eating again. He waited most of the morning to be cleared by the speech therapist to eat solid food. This, or course, just made him more hungry and frustrated. He kept asking for Mexican food, said he was going crazy with hunger, and that he was “going to snap.” At one point, his father asked him if he remembered what city he was in, and CR responded, “Shit-Hole No-Food City.”

Once the therapist arrived, CR tried to leverage the tests she was asking him to complete to get food. “I’ll do anything you want, just give me some food,” he whispered. The therapist went through a variety of tests, starting water, then juice, apple sauce, and finally graham crackers. The purpose of the test, she said, was to make sure he wouldn’t accidentally inhale food and liquids and further complicate the pneumonia he is fighting off in his right lung. “I won’t aspirate, I promise,” he said, using the nurses terminology.

CR just started to move the left side of his body, so for his final test, the therapist put a cracker in his left hand and let him feed himself. Possibly the most humbling moment of the visit was watching one of the world’s most prolific skiers, someone we’ve grown accustomed to seeing boost 20-foot airs out of the pipe, struggle to stick a cracker in his mouth. When the session was over, however, CR was cleared for solid foods and put on a restricted diet.

According to his mother, Lorraine, some of CR’s most significant breakthroughs of the week have come with Tanner Hall in the room. Tanner was the only one in the room when he opened his eyes for the first time. Lorraine says he ran out of the room to the nurse’s station and yelled, “Yo nurse! Come here quick, he opened his eyes.” The next day CR was awake when Tanner arrived, and CR lifted both arms for the first time.

While his progress is promising, CR has a long way to go. The Johnson’s have gotten hundreds of e-mails at the loveforcr@freeskier.com address, and say they support is making a huge difference. Lorraine says CR is able to read, so keep the positive messages coming.

Snowbird pitched in to help make the Johnson's stay in Shi--er--Salt Lake City as easy as possible by offering free lift tickets to the family so they could take a much-needed break from the hospital and hopefully enjoy the storm forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday
 
This came in over the weekend:

1/2/06 - From Rusty Johnson: CR takes his first steps since the accident.

Today was one of those benchmark days we live for. CR walked for the first time! He had a good speech therapy session where he anwsered all the questions correctly. I asked him afterwards if those were easy questions and he said they were. I thought so too but they showed his thinking process was on a certain level. In the afternoon we took CR down to PT in a wheelchair and he returned to his room using a walker! He had to go up four stairs during PT as well, and the therapist said, "Go up with you right foot first, then bring your left foot up and step up the next step with your right foot and and bring the left foot up to that step." NOT! CR went up the stairs right-left, right-left and the therapist said' "Show off!" I had to call Lorraine and say, "Hey Honey, you know that big wheel chair CR used to use back in the day? Well they just took that out of his room, it's gone." Anyway, you can tell I'm excited. Tomorrow is scheduled for 4.5 hours of PT and we hope for more progress. There will inevitably be ups and downs but today along with the day he woke up and the day he was allowed to eat is one of the greats and I'll take it. It was shared with his good friend Pep Fujas and his new friend and former nurse Cody and, of course, his Mom. --Rusty
 
Wow, thats awesome. It made my day just reading that. He is doing so well and I am hoping for the best for him and for his family.
 
his progress is amazing, thats awesome to hear, make a separate thread when he comes home
 
**update...

Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2005

"C.R. continues in rehab doing physical, occupational and speech therapy every day," said C.R.'s dad in an e-mail. "He is having some difficulty coming to grips with his circumstances which is that he has to relearn even the most mundane daily moves like getting up and standing, etc," he said. In a way, this is a good thing because it shows signs of a healing brain.

"We are hopeful that within three weeks we can bring CR home where he will continue therapy in Reno and in Truckee."
 
Well as for the whole as big as Lance Armstrong thing. It is an amazing feat to recover fully from that devastating of an injury but I'm pretty sure being cured of cancer is a bigger feat. So I do agree he should be greatly recognized but not to the extent of Lance Armstong.
 
Not to mention lance armstrong had a 3% chance, of just surviving the cancer! Let alone ever walking or getting on a bike again...Not many people know that, its a tad bit more amazing in my book. Not bashing CR of course, just spreading around my knowledge :)
 
Its irrelevent and a completely different situation. My friends father was in an 'unrecoverable' coma and was able to make it back to full strength. But that is irrelevent too...Lets just focus on getting this person back, he deserves our undivided support.
 
it would be so cool if he learned to ski like all over again and became pro again. but hopefully he wont have to do that.
 
cr faces monumental challenges. i sincerely hope that he can ski at the top again.

this has nothing to do with lance armstrong.
 
you guys who are all waiting for CR to come back and ski it might take a number of years, even after he's physicly recovered there will be a huge mental block, I know there was for me, and still is, and I was only half paralyzed for 20 minutes and I was never in a coma, when he gets back on the slopes he won't ski like he used to, Lance could get back on his bike with no fear because his cancer wasn't caused by cycling, CR's injury is from skiing, so even when he's back look for him to put more time into The Bigger Picture than to his own skiing, at least at first
 
are you a fucking tool? letting people know that this nurse is breaking doctor patieint confidentiality and then saying shit like that when you arent even sure about it. whats the point man?
 
i think it is a good thing for the Johnson Family, and for the ski world, that we still have CR, and that he survived such a bad accident, but i dont think CR will ever be a professional skier again. sure i think he will be back on skis, but, he has to re- learn basic functions, and that will take a while. not to mention if he ever has another head injury again, it will be very very bad
 
Monday, Jan. 9, 2006

C.R. Johnson is scheduled to be released from hospital on Tuesday, a month and a half after a backcountry accident left him in a coma.

C.R. will move to his parents house until he can live independently. Meanwhile, months of physical and speech therapy will continue.

another update**

"He is up for it and I won't be surprised to see C.R. back on the snow in the spring," said C.R.'s dad. "As always, we thank all of you for the prayers and energy which have helped us through this ordeal. We quite literally could not have done it alone."

Almost 400 e-mails have come in to the loveforCR@freeskier.com e-mail account from the USA to Scandanavia to Japan and everywhere in between.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top