Dear Friends:
Paul had a great day ... the best so far according to Dad. It started off slow...he was sleeping when Dad got there. The speech therapist came in and wanted him to have the cap on the trach. They had him suctioned before starting. She was concerned that Paul may have heard us talking about taking him home and that this may be making him not want to work the last few days thinking he may be able to go home. Dad "talked" with Paul to impress the importance of him working on the things we are asking him to do. He impressed to Paul that him coming home and having only us to work with him is like taking his bike to an amateur to do work on it ... the therapists are the professionals that he needs to help him get well. He really needs to cooperate even if it seems stupid or silly. When it came time to do therapy he didn't really want to get out of bed. When they moved his legs to get him up he pulled his legs back into the bed ... but the therapists were persistant and he finally got up. They got downstairs to the therapy room and started working on things that they thought he might like doing. First they tried to work with a spring loaded hand grip. That was too difficult for him so they got another type of hand exerciser that had rubber bands to squeeze that gives resistance. They told him to squeeze like he was gripping the clutch of his motorcycle. He did that really good...he did that about 5 or 6 times pretty rapidly. The therapist was so thrilled ... she had never seen him respond so well. He did about 6 more so they asked him to do 4 more and he did that too. Then they asked him to do even more ... he did about 40 repetitions of this exercise in groups of about 10. He really CAN do it!!! Then they got a foot exerciser that is two pedals (like organ pedals) for him to work his legs. They took his boots off while they worked on it. Keith told him to think of it like a Porsche and put the pedal to the metal ... Dad told Keith he already had his right foot down ... now he needed to push in the clutch with his left foot. He pushed with his left foot which raised his right foot. Keith told him to push his right foot andthen alternate his feet .. he did this about 20 times!! Then they gave him a ring about the size of a steering wheel that they put between his knees and he was to squeeze it and release ... he did that about 10 times. Then Keith told him to drop it to the floor. Keith wanted him to use his hand to push it ... he just lifted his left leg to drop it. Keith was OK with that ... It worked!! Then they gave him an large elastic band that they wanted him to hold while they pulled it away from him. They stretched it pretty far until it would finally pull out of his hand. He seemed to smile when they got "popped" with it!! LOL By then he was pretty tired and it was time to go to the hospital for his CT scan. He left about 4:50 and got back to the nursing home around 5:30. We should here something within the next few days on that. Tomorrow he will have an x-ray of the left foot. Friday is the last day of zero weight bearing on that foot. We believe he will be ready to start standing and exercising his legs. Keith left a message for Mount Vernon today so maybe we will have a visit from them soon!
God Bless, Lynne & Carl
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