Bob is always busy around here. Friday came with a “pedicure” in the morning. The podiatrist came by to clip his toenails. And his nurse Melissa made me cry a little bit when she informed me that if his bladder issues don’t resolve before discharge, that I would potentially need to do the intermittent catheterization at home. I very quickly switched into work mode and said, “Okay. If I have to do it, I will do it”.
Then I watched the procedure today. Not. A. Fan. So PLEASE pray for the bladder issues to rectify. It’s most likely a brain injury issue and not a complication of the repeated bladder infections.
Brian came for ADLs (activities of daily living) as part of OT Friday morning and Bob did a great job getting himself ready. I was shocked at how flexible he is becoming. I told him I should sign him up for yoga. He made a face (sorry Beth).
Speech is always fun and I started the session by grabbing some sequencing cards out of the box and also some where you had to decide which item didn’t belong and explain why. I am always excited to play the brain games with Bob. And we always ask Ashley for more homework.
We played cards for a bit and then I went down to meet with my peer mentor while Bob went to PT. I talked to Ryan for almost an hour. It was an incredible story and 5 years post accident, he said his wife does almost everything she did before the accident and even more. The only thing she doesn’t do yet is drive. But he put the blame more on himself than her. We both got teary here and there but the overall message I got was one of hope. They travelled to Arizona for a vacation 7 months after their accident.
PT with Ranit went well. I came in for the second part of it from my meeting with Ryan. Bob was on his second lap of walking around the gym and then he showed off how he can go up and down a set of four stairs holding both railings. So we need to install a second railing to get into the house.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in a meeting with his case manager Trisha discussing discharge planning and the neurology appointment from earlier in the week. Anyone have a neurologist that they recommend from the Philadelphia area? I’m hoping that they are affiliated with Jefferson or Penn and might have office hours on the Jersey side. But the Jersey thing isn’t a deal breaker.
Friday night was a “Brittany, Joey, and Karen Night of Fun”. We headed to AC and had drinks, dinner, and escaped a room. We took it easy Saturday and decided not to drive to Philadelphia in the weather. And we needed a day to recuperate from the fun.
So back I came today to spend the day with Bob in makeup therapies from what he missed Tuesday. We started with Recreation Therapy where Bob decided he wanted to spend time on the computer. He was tasked with creating a new gmail address (which he will likely NEVER use) so I emailed him. And he wrote back.
He also looked up information about the super bowl and watched a bit of the live feed from church this morning.
We had OT with Maryanne. She was super sweet and worked on short walk transfers to a commode and really worked to stretch his left shoulder.
Speech was with Ashley and he did well on the new cognitive log and worked to repeat sets of four words back to her in reverse order. If you zone out, you’re never going to get them right. I had a hard time for a few of them when I lost focus. Bob was working hard. We also did some sequencing of entries in a checkbook to balance it. I know he just wanted to snatch the pencil and start working.
It was a jam packed day. Quick lunch. Room stop for meds and off to PT. He worked on “sit stands” where he has to get up and down over and over. We also played catch where first we did chest passes and then I threw the ball out to his sides for him to grab. He also did a great job again on the stairs.
I gave him another buzz cut and then Brian, Laurie, and Andy came for a visit. It was nice hearing the guys talk about old stories from when they were younger.
We had dinner and Bob got cleaned up. We played SkipBo and worked on speech homework for about an hour. We did the one where I say three words and he comes up with the word that relates to all three. Bob did well, except for fixating on “elephant” as the answer to multiple questions. Made me think of this British version of Family Feud and their fast money round.
Overall, busy few days. And he will hit this week hard. We’re bummed to not see Ranit or his day nurse, Melissa, as they are off this week, but we’ll see them next week and we hope they are both having a great time on their trips. Happy birthday Melissa!