July 24, 2017 9:45 pm
Josh started the day speaking to the neuropsychologist, Dr. Schraa. Everyone raves about Dr. Schraa, but I have a different opinion. He's a nice guy, but he speaks very quickly and in terms that many time I don't even understand.
Every session starts out the same, "What city are you in?" Josh never knows. "What state are you in?" Again, he doesn't know. "You are in a hospital. Do you know why you are here? Did your mom tell you." Josh shakes his head. "You were in an accident and you hurt your brain." Josh looks at me for verification. I nod. Then we go to the next test.
Schraa gave Josh the clock test he gave last week. He showed him a picture of a clock and said, very quickly, "Copy the clock and make it read 10 after 11." Under the clock Josh wrote: 10 + 11 = 21. Schraa repeated the instructions. Under Josh's equation, he wrote: 10 + 11 = 21. So the doctor went to the next test.
Josh counted from 20-1. He named the days of the week. And when asked to list the months, he did January - July ... twice. He couldn't get past July.
Then Schraa put 5 small circles, 5 large circles, 5 small squares, and 5 large squares on the desk. Each set had 5 colors: white, green, red, yellow, black. He said, "Josh, pick the yellow square." Josh did it. "Pick the red circle." He couldn't do it. But between instructions, Josh started to organize the colors. "Josh, pick the large yellow square." He couldn't do it, but as Schraa took notes, he kept organizing. At this point Josh had the large circles and the small circles in the same color order from left to right. "Pick the small red circle and the large white square." At this point I'm thinking, "He couldn't do the previous instruction, what makes you think he can do this more complex problem?" And, obviously, he couldn't, but he did finish organizing all the pieces so that all the large squares were on the top row, the small squares were on the 2nd row, the large circles were on the 3rd row, and the small circles were on the 4th row. And they were all in the same color order. But in reality, Josh failed both tests and was excused to his next class.
Next was ST. I got a call from the neurosurgeon, so I missed most of the first half of class. Allison showed me what work they'd done. He was told to spell some usual words. He missed two, one of which was hammer. He wrote "curry." Then the next 2 words he spelled "curry" too. It was nearly 11:00. He was probably hungry!
Next, Allison had him write some words that can't be spelled phonetically, like "magician." Josh spelled the first 2 correctly, and the rest incorrectly. Then she asked him to spell words that she made up. As far as I'm concerned, he nailed those!
While Allison was explaining what had happened in their session, Josh fell asleep in his wheelchair. That was it for that class. I took him back to his room (he doesn't have footrests on his wheelchair, so I dragged him backward), and his BA and I put him to bed.
Josh slept for about 2 hours, he ate lunch (but not very much), then was off to his next class.
We went to see Barb for PT. We did a lot of walking and transferring in and out of his bed. He's a pro, but Paul and I had to be tested so that we can have more freedom. Then she tested his walking - side to side, grapevine, backwards... He was exhausted after that. He went to his room and took another 1 1/2-hour nap.
Then Joanna worked with him for OT. He played a memory game where he had to match cards. Face-side up, he aced it. But his biggest problem was that he is impulsive (a BIG problem with frontal lobe injury), so he always chose the same cards each time ... especially the card right in front of him. When he got down to 8 cards, he thought more strategically and did much better.
Again he was exhausted, but he had to eat dinner: baby back ribs and mashed potatoes. He ate a big dinner, then - you guessed it - fell asleep.
Paul and I woke him up around 6:30. We took him to the PT room where he chose to ride a stationary bike and walk on a treadmill. Then we played letter and number games. He can tell you a letter, but if you ask him which letter is 'N,' he will point to the wrong letter. I asked him what 1+2 is, and he said 12.
After getting him some exercise with the intention of tiring him out so he will sleep all night, we took him back to his room where we said our nightly prayers. I told him that Dad prayed last and I prayed the night before, then I asked him if he would like to pray tonight. He said "sure." Remember, talking is very hard for him, and he can only whisper, so volunteering was a big step. He said: "Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day. Please send someone to heal me. (long pause) F-ing thank you." Then Paul tried to hurry this to the end by prompting, "In the name..." Josh finished out his prayer. It's not often we hear an F-bomb in a prayer addressed to God and sealed in the name of Christ. But the surprising news is that Josh knew he needed to be healed! I don't know whether that's good or bad, but we didn't think he knew that.
After the prayer, we left him with his first male BA, Josiah, and we returned to our apartment.
Two bad things happened today.
(1) Josh's clothes are missing! We bought him all new clothes on 7/15, and (fortunately) we had the receipts with us. So we checked what he had with what we bought and discovered that 50-60% of his clothes are gone! He literally had no pants, sweats, or shorts. The only thing in his drawer was a swimsuit, which he wore because he had no other choice. The BA was supposed to go from room to room looking through drawers and closets, but she did only two rooms and left the rest for the night BA - who probably won't do it because everyone will be sleeping and all the rooms will be dark. I hope someone takes the initiative and they find his clothes tomorrow.
(2) The doctor told us a few days ago that if Josh met his calorie count, he would remove the PEG tube. Josh met his calorie count, but the doctor said that now he has to drink 6-8 glasses of water/day before he will remove the tube. That's not going to happen, so we might as well get used to this horrible PEG tube.
Josh started the day speaking to the neuropsychologist, Dr. Schraa. Everyone raves about Dr. Schraa, but I have a different opinion. He's a nice guy, but he speaks very quickly and in terms that many time I don't even understand.
Every session starts out the same, "What city are you in?" Josh never knows. "What state are you in?" Again, he doesn't know. "You are in a hospital. Do you know why you are here? Did your mom tell you." Josh shakes his head. "You were in an accident and you hurt your brain." Josh looks at me for verification. I nod. Then we go to the next test.
Schraa gave Josh the clock test he gave last week. He showed him a picture of a clock and said, very quickly, "Copy the clock and make it read 10 after 11." Under the clock Josh wrote: 10 + 11 = 21. Schraa repeated the instructions. Under Josh's equation, he wrote: 10 + 11 = 21. So the doctor went to the next test.
Josh counted from 20-1. He named the days of the week. And when asked to list the months, he did January - July ... twice. He couldn't get past July.
Then Schraa put 5 small circles, 5 large circles, 5 small squares, and 5 large squares on the desk. Each set had 5 colors: white, green, red, yellow, black. He said, "Josh, pick the yellow square." Josh did it. "Pick the red circle." He couldn't do it. But between instructions, Josh started to organize the colors. "Josh, pick the large yellow square." He couldn't do it, but as Schraa took notes, he kept organizing. At this point Josh had the large circles and the small circles in the same color order from left to right. "Pick the small red circle and the large white square." At this point I'm thinking, "He couldn't do the previous instruction, what makes you think he can do this more complex problem?" And, obviously, he couldn't, but he did finish organizing all the pieces so that all the large squares were on the top row, the small squares were on the 2nd row, the large circles were on the 3rd row, and the small circles were on the 4th row. And they were all in the same color order. But in reality, Josh failed both tests and was excused to his next class.
Next was ST. I got a call from the neurosurgeon, so I missed most of the first half of class. Allison showed me what work they'd done. He was told to spell some usual words. He missed two, one of which was hammer. He wrote "curry." Then the next 2 words he spelled "curry" too. It was nearly 11:00. He was probably hungry!
Next, Allison had him write some words that can't be spelled phonetically, like "magician." Josh spelled the first 2 correctly, and the rest incorrectly. Then she asked him to spell words that she made up. As far as I'm concerned, he nailed those!
While Allison was explaining what had happened in their session, Josh fell asleep in his wheelchair. That was it for that class. I took him back to his room (he doesn't have footrests on his wheelchair, so I dragged him backward), and his BA and I put him to bed.
Josh slept for about 2 hours, he ate lunch (but not very much), then was off to his next class.
We went to see Barb for PT. We did a lot of walking and transferring in and out of his bed. He's a pro, but Paul and I had to be tested so that we can have more freedom. Then she tested his walking - side to side, grapevine, backwards... He was exhausted after that. He went to his room and took another 1 1/2-hour nap.
Then Joanna worked with him for OT. He played a memory game where he had to match cards. Face-side up, he aced it. But his biggest problem was that he is impulsive (a BIG problem with frontal lobe injury), so he always chose the same cards each time ... especially the card right in front of him. When he got down to 8 cards, he thought more strategically and did much better.
Again he was exhausted, but he had to eat dinner: baby back ribs and mashed potatoes. He ate a big dinner, then - you guessed it - fell asleep.
Paul and I woke him up around 6:30. We took him to the PT room where he chose to ride a stationary bike and walk on a treadmill. Then we played letter and number games. He can tell you a letter, but if you ask him which letter is 'N,' he will point to the wrong letter. I asked him what 1+2 is, and he said 12.
After getting him some exercise with the intention of tiring him out so he will sleep all night, we took him back to his room where we said our nightly prayers. I told him that Dad prayed last and I prayed the night before, then I asked him if he would like to pray tonight. He said "sure." Remember, talking is very hard for him, and he can only whisper, so volunteering was a big step. He said: "Dear Heavenly Father. Thank you for this day. Please send someone to heal me. (long pause) F-ing thank you." Then Paul tried to hurry this to the end by prompting, "In the name..." Josh finished out his prayer. It's not often we hear an F-bomb in a prayer addressed to God and sealed in the name of Christ. But the surprising news is that Josh knew he needed to be healed! I don't know whether that's good or bad, but we didn't think he knew that.
After the prayer, we left him with his first male BA, Josiah, and we returned to our apartment.
Two bad things happened today.
(1) Josh's clothes are missing! We bought him all new clothes on 7/15, and (fortunately) we had the receipts with us. So we checked what he had with what we bought and discovered that 50-60% of his clothes are gone! He literally had no pants, sweats, or shorts. The only thing in his drawer was a swimsuit, which he wore because he had no other choice. The BA was supposed to go from room to room looking through drawers and closets, but she did only two rooms and left the rest for the night BA - who probably won't do it because everyone will be sleeping and all the rooms will be dark. I hope someone takes the initiative and they find his clothes tomorrow.
(2) The doctor told us a few days ago that if Josh met his calorie count, he would remove the PEG tube. Josh met his calorie count, but the doctor said that now he has to drink 6-8 glasses of water/day before he will remove the tube. That's not going to happen, so we might as well get used to this horrible PEG tube.
You both must be exhausted. I think Paul left on business today, so you'll be holding down the fort. We are praying that Joshua gets back to "normal' very soon. So even though his progress may seem slow, it's amazingly good since we are barely one month from what we suspected would be his death. Saying a rational, meaningful prayer with a brain injury that nearly erased hope.....I would call that super fantastic. His attitude is quite beautiful, and it seems as if you are not seeing the depression. I know you think it's worth whatever the cost to have our Joshua back. I love you.
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