Day by Day

I believe that Judi has started to reconcile the anger she has been carrying for a while. She still has days when you can tell she is mad at the world, but they are becoming less frequent. She also tries hard to control her negative attitude when it is pointed out to her. We often have some interesting discussions when she lets the "alien" out. It is interesting to note that she is normally very receptive to communicating with her signs when we discuss this topic. It is my hope that she will get more and more control as she continues to improve. Again, all of these things are very common for people suffering a traumatic brain injury.

One of the biggest news items since the last post was a visit from Judi's dad and older sister over the Labor Day weekend. When her dad walked in, it was the second largest display of emotion I have seen from Judi since the accident. She was so excited when he came in that I thought for sure she was going to break down and cry. She also reached out and gave him and her sister a big hug. I was praying the whole time that she would talk to him, but she never quite got it out. It was a good visit and I think it did everyone some good. The emotional display is a VERY good sign since it involves multiple brain functions at multiple levels to process this level of emotional response. In case you were wondering, the biggest display of emotion was when I brought her home for the first time after the accident.

Rehab continues to go well and she is showing improvement in all areas. The largest improvement continues to be in the physical therapy arena. She is getting significantly stronger and it is good to see the muscle growth/tone in her legs continue to improve. When I transfer her between locations, she usually wants to stand for a short period of time with me supporting her. She has started to put her arm around my waist and I give her a big hug while we stand there. I can't describe how good it is to see her standing tall with her head held up and a beautiful smile on her face. We continue to hold out hope that she will recover use of her left leg soon. Occupational therapy continues at about the same pace as before. Some days she is totally into it, others she just really has little interest. On the off days we continue to focus on restoring the range of motion on the right side and stretching the left side. Speech therapy is a bit hit or miss lately. We are integrating the IPad into those sessions as well as at home. She is starting to write her name and some simple words periodically. It is still not on a regular basis, but she is getting better and better at it. One of the issues I am trying to resolve is whether her vision is impacting her or not. Before the accident, she needed reading glasses to read and do close up tasks (keyboard use, starting IVs, etc.). I put her glasses on her sometimes when she is doing work on the IPad or other media where she would probably have needed them in the past, but I can't tell if they are really helping or not. She will take them off when they seem to bother her. She is still trying hard to talk and I will continue to say it is just a matter of time before she is able to master that skill again.

She is a very "BUSY" lady again. I mentioned this once before, but she gets on a roll some days and is incapable of being still or not touching/messing with anything within her reach. Again, this is a good sign that her inquisitiveness is growing stronger, but it keeps me on my toes. I encourage her to experiment and it has helped her continue to gain confidence in doing things on her own. She will drink out of her cup on her own and is doing a pretty good job eating on her own as well. I have been feeding her a bit more than usual because we have been slowly moving her diet back to a more coarse texture to encourage her to chew. She is starting to use her tongue to move food to her teeth and this is exactly what we are looking for. I feed her to make sure she doesn't get too much going at one time and choke. When she feeds herself, her mission appears to be "get as much on a spoon as possible." I will mention that she doesn't like to be fed (wants to do it herself) unless you explain to her why you are ding it. Again, some good signs.

Neuro feedback (NF) continues to be my focus at home. We are actively training her on all of the key sites in the brain with the exception of the pre-frontal lobe (right above your eyes). I have seen an improvement in her awareness and activity level as we opened the door on the new sites. Once she has been stable here for a while, we'll give the pre-frontal lobes another try. Every time we tried to train here in the past, she ultimately had a seizure within 24 hrs. There is obviously a lot of improvement that can be made here, but we want to do it without increasing the risk of seizures too much. We will probably do another full EEG soon to see how it compares to the baseline that was done right after she came home from the hospital. It may provide some insight on the training strategy going forward.

We do have a massage therapist working with her now and I believe that will provide a lot of relief for her in specific areas that rehab doesn't focus on due to the global issues they are addressing. The first focus area is her neck in the area of rotating her head side to side. She does well with the up and down, but still has difficulty rotating her head. We also have her signed up for an aquatic therapy program at the YMCA which she will start in the next couple of weeks. The main issue there is integrating the schedules for all the activities. I am taking her to an orthopaedic specialist tomorrow to look at her right hand thumb. She is unable to get full range of motion on that thumb and it is starting to have a significant impact on her ability to perform tasks with that hand. I had it looked at while she was in the hospital and the surgeons assured me then that it would not require surgery to correct. A fact few probably know is that the knuckle on her thumb was the only cut she had on her body from the accident. Getting this corrected will go a long way in her recovery.

I think that pretty much covers where we are today. I am doing everything I can to stimulate that fire in Judi and so far, she continues to get better on multiple fronts. Several of you have indicated that I look tired these days and that you are concerned. I greatly appreciate the concern and kind words (and yes I am tired). I am working on some additional help to allow me some additional down time. Judi is at a point where she needs the extra attention and I am going to do my best to give her the best chance possible to recover. Once she gets over the "hump," hopefully she will need less full time attention and things will slow back down. Feel free to come and see us. Judi loves company and it is always good to see old friends.

Steve

One last thing, please take a few minutes to remember the anniversary of 9/11 and all of the brave lives that were lost that day. Those of you that know me well, know that the red/white/blue runs strong in these veins and I will never forget the day our country was attacked by a group of cowards. Please don't forget the innocent men, women and children that lost their lives that day and the hundreds of heroes that died saving countless others.