Thursday

Rachel and I both got here about 11 am. He was sleeping like a baby...with a helmet on of course. He turned on his right side and was curled up just like I sleep. When Christy and Vicky arrived to take him to therapy he woke up slowly. We found out later that the doctor added a muscle relaxant to help the left arm mostly. It probably helped him sleep although apparantly he was up late the night before, too. He was helped into his chair. This is interesting because they make him do most of the work. He sits up and steadies himself. Then he has to reach his right arm across the chair to the right armrest. Then he leans forward into the therapists arms and pivots into the chair. First order of the day was brushing his teeth. He wheels into the small bathroom right to the sink and does the brushing himself. A little dose of mouthwash and he's good to go. Today, they did a lot of electrical muscle stimulation. They put sticky pads on the thigh muscles and gently zap them. They say it feels somewhat like when your leg falls asleep and then the prickly feel of it waking up. Also did heat and ultrasound treatments on his left shoulder, arm and elbow. He used some light hand weights in his right hand and did some reaching forward, grabbing an item and crossing over his body to place it on the mat. The motion of bending and sitting up again left him dizzy so they stopped to take him to his room for a "bolus" and some food. The bolus is a direct dose of liquid food he takes in the feeding tube 5 times a day. He also had some mashed potatoes and gravy and some butterscotch pudding. They think he was light headed because he was hungry and will watch the timing on the therapy in the future. He was switched to the direct feeding because he spends so much time out of the room either in therapy or just being in his chair and not in bed. This is a good thing. The therapists goal for next week is to have him stand at the parallet bars or next to a table for at least 7 minutes while the leg zapper is on his thighs. Right now he is controlling his legs with tendons and ligaments and the muscles need to learn to do the work.
I brought the rest of his cards to the room with some tape and just as Rachel was finishing decorating, they came in to clear out Mr. Moores stuff because he went to the hospital yesterday and apparantly his family isn't paying to hold his room. So, now, Brian is in bed B. Still room 201 but now it's 201B. Kelly, this is where your blogging genius comes in to change this for him. He now has a longer bed, a window where I am going to put a bird feeder, and his TV is to his left now. He has what Kathy called "left side neglect" where he prefers to look to the right so this change will be great for him. Later, they filled his old bed with a man who is 41 and on a vent. He looks as if he's been this way for some time...frail, thin, hard for him to communicate.
Judy was there for most of the afternoon and Stacey was able to come by too. She started Brian writing some things on paper and one of the things he commented on was that he was glad that her hair was no longer a mullet!!! He put the 3 !!! after his comment.
He just looks so good. His face was shaved, his beard was trimmed. When I rub his back and shoulders it is so obvious that they are not nearly as bony and skinny as they were a week or two ago. I'll be anxious to here how much he weighs next time they weigh him.
Dr. Zamorano will probably see him the 2nd or 3rd week of March. Hopefully, by that time he will be strong enough to use a wheelchair van. We'll see.
I think that's all for now. Til next time, Marcy