September 2, 2017 10:30 pm
Another Saturday here at Craig. Weekends are slow here because there are no classes and, mostly, no activities. So patients and their families are mostly left to their own plans.
We spent a chunk of the day playing air hockey in the "T-Rec" room. Josh loves his air hockey. Foosball used to be his sport, but he seems to have graduated to air hockey now. Who knows what might be next.
Mary had one of the staff hook up the Xbox and Kinect in a side room at the T-Rec center. Josh had a lot of fun playing 20,000 Leaks, a game where your own body is the controller (as with all Kinect games) and you have to plug virtual holes in an underwater room. Josh did pretty well with this game, all things considered. More importantly, he seemed to enjoy himself.
Josh also spent a lot of time today on Mary's iPad playing a variety of educational games Mary recently bought. These games teach reading, comprehension, math, memory, and basic thinking. Josh did well enough to surprise the BA that was watching. As Paul profoundly explained, what Josh does well, he does well. What he doesn't, he doesn't.
Thanks to Eden and Heidi, we have a bunch of photos of family and friends pinned to the bulletin board on the wall in Josh's room. We were surprised today when Josh was able to recognize a half dozen or so of the faces there, including himself, Grandma and Grandpa Beecroft, Paul and Mary, Eden, Michelle, Heidi, and Katie. We think he recognized more than that but he just couldn't come up with the name.
But what would a weekend at Craig be without a medical scare? Josh ate a very nice dinner but then suddenly threw most of it up. He's been struggling with this in the mornings but this was the first time in the evening. This, coupled with what we perceive as a slow decrease in mental acuity, made us think that we were headed for another crash, like last week. We quickly called the doctor and, though reluctant at first, he ordered a CT scan to check the fluid accumulation in Josh's head. We were surprised -- but relieved -- that the CT scan showed no major issues. Josh's ventricles have reduced a bit in size, which is to be expected after changing the shunt settings from eight to seven last week. But no one thinks that seven will work long term, so we are all sort of waiting for the next crash. Fortunately, it looks like it isn't going to happen tonight. But the scan did reveal expansion of the open area in the frontal lobe. This isn't good and will need to be dealt with at some point, perhaps with a second permanent shunt. As we left the hospital Josh was sound asleep in his bed after another long day.
Another Saturday here at Craig. Weekends are slow here because there are no classes and, mostly, no activities. So patients and their families are mostly left to their own plans.
We spent a chunk of the day playing air hockey in the "T-Rec" room. Josh loves his air hockey. Foosball used to be his sport, but he seems to have graduated to air hockey now. Who knows what might be next.
Mary had one of the staff hook up the Xbox and Kinect in a side room at the T-Rec center. Josh had a lot of fun playing 20,000 Leaks, a game where your own body is the controller (as with all Kinect games) and you have to plug virtual holes in an underwater room. Josh did pretty well with this game, all things considered. More importantly, he seemed to enjoy himself.
Josh also spent a lot of time today on Mary's iPad playing a variety of educational games Mary recently bought. These games teach reading, comprehension, math, memory, and basic thinking. Josh did well enough to surprise the BA that was watching. As Paul profoundly explained, what Josh does well, he does well. What he doesn't, he doesn't.
Thanks to Eden and Heidi, we have a bunch of photos of family and friends pinned to the bulletin board on the wall in Josh's room. We were surprised today when Josh was able to recognize a half dozen or so of the faces there, including himself, Grandma and Grandpa Beecroft, Paul and Mary, Eden, Michelle, Heidi, and Katie. We think he recognized more than that but he just couldn't come up with the name.
But what would a weekend at Craig be without a medical scare? Josh ate a very nice dinner but then suddenly threw most of it up. He's been struggling with this in the mornings but this was the first time in the evening. This, coupled with what we perceive as a slow decrease in mental acuity, made us think that we were headed for another crash, like last week. We quickly called the doctor and, though reluctant at first, he ordered a CT scan to check the fluid accumulation in Josh's head. We were surprised -- but relieved -- that the CT scan showed no major issues. Josh's ventricles have reduced a bit in size, which is to be expected after changing the shunt settings from eight to seven last week. But no one thinks that seven will work long term, so we are all sort of waiting for the next crash. Fortunately, it looks like it isn't going to happen tonight. But the scan did reveal expansion of the open area in the frontal lobe. This isn't good and will need to be dealt with at some point, perhaps with a second permanent shunt. As we left the hospital Josh was sound asleep in his bed after another long day.
I'm so thankful for Joshua's progress. I know these long days will someday feel like they happened all at once and Joshua recovered fine. I know he will, but today it feels like Old Man River. I miss my Taylor family so much. Nothing is the same, or as happy without you. We got Jaron married off yesterday and I nearly cried because our favorite photographer wasn't there, and a group of twenty-something year old shouting men didn't include Jaron's cousin, and my favorite Democrat wasn't there to keep things evened out and rational.
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