August 22, 2017 9:30 pm
Paul left this morning for a three-day business trip to California, so Mary was on her own with Josh today. Today was both bad and good. The bad is that Josh was throwing up all morning and he complained of a headache. (Well, technically, he grabbed his head and yelled "OW!") This is the first time in 8 weeks that Josh has initiated an indication of pain. Usually he responds yes/no to the questions we ask, but sometimes even those answers are unreliable. So for him to grab his head and yell, "OW!" means he is really hurting.
Headaches and nausea are both signs of too much intercranial pressure, but the doctors felt that the fear of the radiation from another CT scan would be more damaging than the scan would be helpful, so they decided not to do the scan. Instead, we will will wait for tomorrow's MRI results to find out how the pressure in Josh's head is doing.
In OT today, Josh put together the metal box he has tried to do twice before. Because the vertical pieces weren't in the middle of the horizontal ones, the box wasn't perfect, but it was really good!
Neuropsychology was Josh's next class. Dr. Schraa asked Josh to list all the words he could think of that start with the letter "p." Two minutes passed and Josh hadn't listed a single thing. This happened again with the letters "r" and "w." Not a single word for any of them. Then Dr. Schraa asked Josh to "list all the animals you can think of. You can think of animals in your house, on a farm, in the zoo, in the ocean... just any animal you can think of. Ready? Go." This time I tried to help Josh (which I think was slightly irritating for Dr. Schraa). I asked him questions like, "When we go to the zoo, what is your favorite animal there?" Two minutes passed. Josh didn't name a single animal. Dr. Schraa told me that he knew going into the session that these questions would be "unfair" because of the significant frontal lobe damage Josh has incurred.
Then we had lunch where we learned that Josh definitely loves bananas, and hates goldfish crackers (which were his favorite before the accident).
PT and T-Rec (Therapeutic Recreation) combined class for Josh today, so after lunch, Lori (the T-Rec therapist) played pool with Josh while Barb (the PT therapist) followed Josh around so she could save him if he fell. It was fun to watch because Josh made a couple of calculated shots. For example, once he shot the cue ball into another ball with the intention that the ball would fall into the corner pocket. (It's the top video below.) It didn't work out the way he planned, but it was fun to see his brain making plans like that!
5-second video:
4-second video:
8-second video:
I think the game of pool pretty much tuckered him out because his next class was ST, and he fell asleep within 10 minutes. So he missed ST again today.
Josh slept a lot today. He has been a terrible sleeper lately, so I wonder if it's the hydrocephalus. They are inducing hydrocephalus, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is.
Josh had his stitches and staples removed tonight! There were 54 staples in all (51 across the head and 3 behind his ear). The nurse removed about 1/3 of the staples while he was still asleep - the ones on the top of his head. The ones that went through his sideburns were much more painful; he couldn't sleep through those. He actually fought with those, so it wasn't an easy task for any of us.
The most exciting news around here today had nothing to do with Josh. The guy in the room next door decanulated himself ... twice. The first time nurses were rushing over and I heard someone yell, "I NEED A CRASH CART!" They didn't make such a big deal of it the second time; in fact, I think only one nurse responded. It made me grateful that we aren't at that place anymore. Even though Josh blows on all his food as if it were hot (even his salad), and he can't feed himself, and he rinsed his chicken cordon bleu under the faucet before he wanted it fed to him, and he wets the bed, he is no longer trying to stuff grapes in his feeding tube, or drinking his urine samples, or doing that dreaded neuro-shake. And he even talks sometimes! Even though things are tough every day, and so far no day has been easy, it's nice to reflect back and see the overall upward trend.
Paul left this morning for a three-day business trip to California, so Mary was on her own with Josh today. Today was both bad and good. The bad is that Josh was throwing up all morning and he complained of a headache. (Well, technically, he grabbed his head and yelled "OW!") This is the first time in 8 weeks that Josh has initiated an indication of pain. Usually he responds yes/no to the questions we ask, but sometimes even those answers are unreliable. So for him to grab his head and yell, "OW!" means he is really hurting.
Headaches and nausea are both signs of too much intercranial pressure, but the doctors felt that the fear of the radiation from another CT scan would be more damaging than the scan would be helpful, so they decided not to do the scan. Instead, we will will wait for tomorrow's MRI results to find out how the pressure in Josh's head is doing.
In OT today, Josh put together the metal box he has tried to do twice before. Because the vertical pieces weren't in the middle of the horizontal ones, the box wasn't perfect, but it was really good!
Neuropsychology was Josh's next class. Dr. Schraa asked Josh to list all the words he could think of that start with the letter "p." Two minutes passed and Josh hadn't listed a single thing. This happened again with the letters "r" and "w." Not a single word for any of them. Then Dr. Schraa asked Josh to "list all the animals you can think of. You can think of animals in your house, on a farm, in the zoo, in the ocean... just any animal you can think of. Ready? Go." This time I tried to help Josh (which I think was slightly irritating for Dr. Schraa). I asked him questions like, "When we go to the zoo, what is your favorite animal there?" Two minutes passed. Josh didn't name a single animal. Dr. Schraa told me that he knew going into the session that these questions would be "unfair" because of the significant frontal lobe damage Josh has incurred.
Then we had lunch where we learned that Josh definitely loves bananas, and hates goldfish crackers (which were his favorite before the accident).
PT and T-Rec (Therapeutic Recreation) combined class for Josh today, so after lunch, Lori (the T-Rec therapist) played pool with Josh while Barb (the PT therapist) followed Josh around so she could save him if he fell. It was fun to watch because Josh made a couple of calculated shots. For example, once he shot the cue ball into another ball with the intention that the ball would fall into the corner pocket. (It's the top video below.) It didn't work out the way he planned, but it was fun to see his brain making plans like that!
5-second video:
4-second video:
8-second video:
I think the game of pool pretty much tuckered him out because his next class was ST, and he fell asleep within 10 minutes. So he missed ST again today.
Josh slept a lot today. He has been a terrible sleeper lately, so I wonder if it's the hydrocephalus. They are inducing hydrocephalus, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is.
Josh had his stitches and staples removed tonight! There were 54 staples in all (51 across the head and 3 behind his ear). The nurse removed about 1/3 of the staples while he was still asleep - the ones on the top of his head. The ones that went through his sideburns were much more painful; he couldn't sleep through those. He actually fought with those, so it wasn't an easy task for any of us.
The most exciting news around here today had nothing to do with Josh. The guy in the room next door decanulated himself ... twice. The first time nurses were rushing over and I heard someone yell, "I NEED A CRASH CART!" They didn't make such a big deal of it the second time; in fact, I think only one nurse responded. It made me grateful that we aren't at that place anymore. Even though Josh blows on all his food as if it were hot (even his salad), and he can't feed himself, and he rinsed his chicken cordon bleu under the faucet before he wanted it fed to him, and he wets the bed, he is no longer trying to stuff grapes in his feeding tube, or drinking his urine samples, or doing that dreaded neuro-shake. And he even talks sometimes! Even though things are tough every day, and so far no day has been easy, it's nice to reflect back and see the overall upward trend.
I'm sending you all so much love.
ReplyDeleteMe too on sending all that love and many prayers
ReplyDelete