Thursday, PM

When I showed up at 2 pm, Brian was in his chair by the bed watching TV (sort of), with the sitter close by. I thought he looked tired and he was talking pretty quietly. I checked his schedule and found out that his day began at 8am. By the time I arrived he had seen OT and PT 5 separate times! That's grueling. Salva, (speech), came in and we went to a room for 45 minutes. She talks, he answers. Lots of repetition i.e. ---what year is it, where are you, why are you here, what day is it, did you see the doctor today? She will ask some of the same questions only minutes later and some he remembers some he doesn't. The new ones like "where are you" take a bit longer to remember but she said that he is already improving. She would show him a picture of a ladder and underneath it says, ladder leader dealer. He has to point to the correct word. Unfortunately, most of the correct answers are on the left. He really isn't seeing those at all. If she points to each word, he is always correct. I imagine that being so fatigued makes concentrating even harder. BUT, he never complains or refuses to do the work. He would stretch his legs out and then lean forward, then repeat. I have learned that this is surely a sign of fatigue. When we got back to the room Kathy was there with Mary (is it Reikel?). Wow! Two PT's at once! Dr. Rabe came in to answer questions and Kathy was firing all the good ones at him. They started talking some crazy kind of hospital jargon and I had to keep asking, "huh?" I won't get into the details but it was about the arm casting and leg thingies. That's the best I can do. Also found out that the swallow test is tomorrow at 1 pm. Rachel is spending the day and they said she is welcome to come along. They will wheel over to Harper and it should take about 1/2 hour. Salva also wants to see Brian at an earlier time to see if there is a big difference in his abilities. I'm sure that after he gets used to all of this work, he will do just fine in speech in the afternoon. I asked about the eye problem and the doc said that that is usually a long day at Kresge Eye Institute and he will most likely do that after he is released so that he doesn't miss any therapy time. When I left, he was snuggling the "Rachel cow" looking pretty pooped. I'll see him later tomorrow. Til then, Marcy :)