July 17, 2017 8:15 pm
Dr. Z signed the necessary paperwork for us to go to Craig Hospital tomorrow! Insurance said that once we got a doctor's signature, they would cover transportation. YAY! But once the paperwork was signed, insurance denied coverage. BOO! When Angel MedFlight (a private Air Ambulance company) heard of our plight, they called our case worker at OHSU and offered to fly us on a private Learjet 35 for a mere $75!! YAY! So Josh and I will be leaving OHSU at 8:00 tomorrow morning! I am SO excited to start the next phase of this journey.
Speech therapy went well this morning. They put him on "mechanical soft food." So for breakfast he had Cheerios, which he fed himself.
After breakfast OT helped him brush his teeth. She gave him a toothbrush with toothpaste on it, and he promptly scrubbed his hand. Then he scrubbed his other hand. He knew what to do with the toothbrush, but not where to do it.
Dr. Karen Brasel came by and inspected Josh's PEG tube. It's been hurting him for a couple of days now. She proposed having the stitches around the tube removed, but that wasn't done today. I loosened the bandage around his stomach and that seemed to help with the pain a little.
My mom and sister (Liz) came to visit. When Mom kissed him, Josh grabbed her hand. He put it to his mouth. I expected him to kiss it, but he instead bit her finger. And moments later he bit her hand. Not hard, but like a puppy.
For lunch he had homemade (well, hospital made) mac and cheese, a nectarine, cranberry juice, and cheesecake. He hates cranberry juice and cheesecake, but he snarfed it all down! (I mean SNARFED! He had a spoon in his left hand that he used to shovel mac and cheese into his mouth, and a fork in his right hand he used on the cheesecake. Ate voraciously. Wolfed.) A typical side effect of brain injury is the inability to monitor food intake, resulting in gorging food and potentially choking on it. He stuffed whole slices of nectarine in his mouth, and that didn't go very well. The nurse ended up throwing away the nectarine slices because they were too dangerous.
I brought dice to play Farkle (some people call this game Ten Thousand). I showed Josh one side of the dice and asked him what number it was. He said "5." I showed him the 1 and the 3, and he knew those numbers too! When we played Farkle, he separated the 1s and the 5s from the rest of the dice, but he didn't know how to add the hundreds and the fifties.
For dinner Josh had meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, strawberry yogurt, cranberry juice, and strawberry Haagen Daaz ice cream. The nurse fed him to control his intake. Josh didn't eat nearly as much for dinner as he did for lunch. He had only a couple of bites of meatloaf and mashed potatoes/gravy, and he drank all his cranberry juice, but he didn't touch his yogurt or ice cream! (I would have started with the ice cream. What was he thinking? Oh yeah ... brain injury. Makes sense.)
Josh's birthday is on July 19. Alicia came by and brought Josh his first birthday present for his big 2-5, quarter of a century. It was from her and Passion. It was a Nintendo 2 DS with three games: Mario Kart, Zelda, and Donkey Kong. I think those are his three favorite Nintendo games, so great choices! And once he opened it, that was that. There was no more interacting with him for the rest of the night. Thanks, girls!!
Paul made it safely to Denver after a grueling 20+ hour drive over two days. The last part of the drive today was western Colorado (from Grand Junction into Denver). It was a beautiful drive -- world-class scenery -- but after four hours of driving through one sharp turn after another, with speed limits going up and down seemingly every five miles, heavy traffic (complete stop between Vail and Copper Mtn), heavy rain, 5,000 miles in ascent and then 5,000 in descent, and a 20-minute construction delay, all while trying to get into Denver before the facility closed at 7:00, Paul was happy to finally arrive at Craig Hospital at 6:45. We will be staying at Brookdale Meridian, a retirement facility just a block from the hospital, so it is a good location even if the accommodations leave a little to be desired!
Dr. Z signed the necessary paperwork for us to go to Craig Hospital tomorrow! Insurance said that once we got a doctor's signature, they would cover transportation. YAY! But once the paperwork was signed, insurance denied coverage. BOO! When Angel MedFlight (a private Air Ambulance company) heard of our plight, they called our case worker at OHSU and offered to fly us on a private Learjet 35 for a mere $75!! YAY! So Josh and I will be leaving OHSU at 8:00 tomorrow morning! I am SO excited to start the next phase of this journey.
Speech therapy went well this morning. They put him on "mechanical soft food." So for breakfast he had Cheerios, which he fed himself.
After breakfast OT helped him brush his teeth. She gave him a toothbrush with toothpaste on it, and he promptly scrubbed his hand. Then he scrubbed his other hand. He knew what to do with the toothbrush, but not where to do it.
Dr. Karen Brasel came by and inspected Josh's PEG tube. It's been hurting him for a couple of days now. She proposed having the stitches around the tube removed, but that wasn't done today. I loosened the bandage around his stomach and that seemed to help with the pain a little.
My mom and sister (Liz) came to visit. When Mom kissed him, Josh grabbed her hand. He put it to his mouth. I expected him to kiss it, but he instead bit her finger. And moments later he bit her hand. Not hard, but like a puppy.
For lunch he had homemade (well, hospital made) mac and cheese, a nectarine, cranberry juice, and cheesecake. He hates cranberry juice and cheesecake, but he snarfed it all down! (I mean SNARFED! He had a spoon in his left hand that he used to shovel mac and cheese into his mouth, and a fork in his right hand he used on the cheesecake. Ate voraciously. Wolfed.) A typical side effect of brain injury is the inability to monitor food intake, resulting in gorging food and potentially choking on it. He stuffed whole slices of nectarine in his mouth, and that didn't go very well. The nurse ended up throwing away the nectarine slices because they were too dangerous.
I brought dice to play Farkle (some people call this game Ten Thousand). I showed Josh one side of the dice and asked him what number it was. He said "5." I showed him the 1 and the 3, and he knew those numbers too! When we played Farkle, he separated the 1s and the 5s from the rest of the dice, but he didn't know how to add the hundreds and the fifties.
For dinner Josh had meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, strawberry yogurt, cranberry juice, and strawberry Haagen Daaz ice cream. The nurse fed him to control his intake. Josh didn't eat nearly as much for dinner as he did for lunch. He had only a couple of bites of meatloaf and mashed potatoes/gravy, and he drank all his cranberry juice, but he didn't touch his yogurt or ice cream! (I would have started with the ice cream. What was he thinking? Oh yeah ... brain injury. Makes sense.)
Josh's birthday is on July 19. Alicia came by and brought Josh his first birthday present for his big 2-5, quarter of a century. It was from her and Passion. It was a Nintendo 2 DS with three games: Mario Kart, Zelda, and Donkey Kong. I think those are his three favorite Nintendo games, so great choices! And once he opened it, that was that. There was no more interacting with him for the rest of the night. Thanks, girls!!
Paul made it safely to Denver after a grueling 20+ hour drive over two days. The last part of the drive today was western Colorado (from Grand Junction into Denver). It was a beautiful drive -- world-class scenery -- but after four hours of driving through one sharp turn after another, with speed limits going up and down seemingly every five miles, heavy traffic (complete stop between Vail and Copper Mtn), heavy rain, 5,000 miles in ascent and then 5,000 in descent, and a 20-minute construction delay, all while trying to get into Denver before the facility closed at 7:00, Paul was happy to finally arrive at Craig Hospital at 6:45. We will be staying at Brookdale Meridian, a retirement facility just a block from the hospital, so it is a good location even if the accommodations leave a little to be desired!
That Angel MedFlight is a miracle. I'm glad Josh had a better day.
ReplyDeleteI am very grateful for AngelMed... huge blessing. I hate the money grubbing mess our insurance has become... Over all, it seems a good report to me. Praying...praying for all of you. This is very hard.
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