Paul's Update - 03/28/06

Dear Friends:

Today was Mom's day with Paul. Dad spent the day working at Paul & Tabby's house doing drywall spackling. The walls should be ready to paint by Wednesday evening! I arrived at the hospital around 8:30. The nurse's aid was just coming in to dress Paul so he'd be ready for OT at 9:00. He was awake and ready. OT came, got him out of bed and took him to the therapy room. She worked on his arms mostly today. His right arm is getting stronger and he is able to use it a little more. The left arm is still stiff but he tries hard to use it (even to the point of pain!). Once we got back to the room Paul stayed in the wheelchair for a bit until time for PT. When the therapist came in we were able to go right down to the gym. It was pretty busy in there but they were able to get him up and walk. He walked about ten feet and then they had to turn around to walk the ten feet back with the Swedish walker. Then she wanted to try walking him with a person on each side holding him up under his armpits. He took several steps and actually did a little better without the walker. The last thing she did was to have him practice standing up and rocking from side to side to exercise his hips. Speech was at 1:00 pm. We had a substitute today and she will be there again tomorrow. She was following instructions from the regular therapist. She started with the bell ... he really couldn't do that. He would extend his arm and hand to ring it but he doesn't have enough "snap" to ring it. She gave him the buzzer and he immediately pushed the button but then he didn't let go. She worked with that for a while and he finally got the hang of it. She asked him several of the same questions as yesterday. He only got two of them right today. He was able to get about 5 small ice chips which he really wanted and he did pretty good with them. He swallowed most of it (with a little encouragement). She was able to get him to lift his left hand to touch hers about 6 inches up. I think speech went really well. Tabby was able to come to the hospital tonight and stay until the end of visiting hours. She has been so busy with the house that she hasn't been able to get there until after 9:00 pm so she hasn't been there for several days. The doctor came in this evening and confirmed that he stopped the indigestion med last night and was pleased to see that the hiccupping wasn't worse today. Tomorrow the nurse will give Paul some Tylenol prior to therapy to see if that enables him to move a bit better with less pain. We will also do the measuring for Paul's wheelchair at 11:00 am tomorrow. It is starting to look like we are almost prepared to bring Paul home next Thursday. The nurses and doctors will meet tomorrow and analyze how Paul is doing but we are doubtful that they will change the expected release date. I think God has worked out a lot of things for our preparation. Extra time, volunteers to help get the house ready, less meds, a chance to talk to someone from Brain Injury Services on Thursday. Lots of evidence that God is in charge and is answering our prayers! Our God is so faithful to us!

Have a great day, Lynne & Carl