A few good reads

Things are going well today - Matt's still cruising with the quad cane and going further every time. His right hand is starting to bother him in therapy, which is a good sign, I guess. That's how his leg started, too. He's also moving his right shoulder during exercises more than I've seen before.

A few people have asked if we've found any good books to read about brain injury and such and even though I have a hard time concentrating on reading, I have read a few. So if you're interested, I would recommend:

'My stroke of insight' by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor - Dr. Taylor's stroke was in the left hemisphere of her brain and she discusses some of the same issues Matt has had. Plus, its a good read for inspiration about the spiritual and 'positive' sides of brain injuries.

'In an Instant' by Lee and Bob Woodruff - Bob Woodruff was a reporter imbedded with a unit in Iraq when he suffered a TBI from a roadside bomb. I haven't read this yet, but it is traveling around my family and my sister really recommends it.

'Mindstorms' by Dr. John W. Cassidy - I'm in the middle of this book, but so far its a good informational read about the basics of brain injury and treatments.

'The brain that changes itself' by Dr. Norman Doige - I also haven't read this one, but it comes highly recommended from other families here at rehab. Its about the plasticity of the brain and how much it can relearn after an injury.

Telling time

Matt was completely exhausted this afternoon. He'd been sleeping since 3 and wasn't all that thrilled with us waking him up for dinner. But somehow he always wakes up by 7:30 - time for the Simpsons!

Today we learned how to transfer from the wheelchair to the truck - Matt was pretty excited to ride in his truck again. Then he worked on walking up the stairs in the gym, which was pretty difficult, and probably the reason for him being so tired.

Next steps

Another exciting day - Matt walked about 180 feet with just a four-legged cane! (For those of you who have visited he went from the couch in the lobby out to the hallway and then back almost all the way to the gym.)

His speech therapist was really happy with his progress today, too. Matt followed one-step directions (like point to the window) 100% and named 70% of a group of objects without any cues. Two-step directions are still too much to concentrate on, but it was amazing progress today.

Giant leap

Check it out - Matt is moving his right leg without the therapist's help! You must all have been sending him positive energy today. Thank you thank you thank you!

He's been using this walker for awhile, but the PT always has to stand behind him and help move the right leg through. Today she was helping him stand up and get his right arm secured and he just stepped forward with his right leg. Everyone stopped like that hadn't just happened. Then he did it again. Then he walked down the hall, back up and into the gym.

During his second session, his regular PT (who was bummed that she wasn't helping him when he made his first step!) had him try a cane. So he walked back and forth across the gym with just a cane! Its a cane just like the guy had in 'Up' which we recently watched and that observation made Matt smile. Then he had to come back for a nap.

I started out today excited because Matt remembered to ask for milk which is one of his hard words and then all this happened! What a day.

Fresh air

We made it to the treehouse yesterday and I think Matt really liked being outside. Sometimes I think he does things with us because he thinks it will make us happy, not really because its what he wants. We've been noticing this a lot recently - he is always very concerned about other people around him.

We worked on more math problems yesterday and Matt's still having trouble naming numbers. But then we played the card game war for awhile and he knew the number values without any trouble.

This morning Matt was trying to ask me something about 'position system' again and then sat for awhile really thinking about something. Finally he asked 'you sleep, well?' I think this is the first time we've had a conversation that he initiated.

Saturday morning

I think that there is always going to be a small voice in my head wondering if I chose the right rehab facility regardless of how great Matt is doing here. But the past few days we've realized again why its been the perfect place - Freddie gets to visit here! And Matt is so happy. He had an awesome and very busy day of therapy yesterday and then came back to the room for a nap. Freddie jumped up on the bed with him and they both slept quite contendedly. We're hoping to get Matt outside later this afternoon to take Freddie for a walk, too. Maybe we can make it to the treehouse.

Thursday morning

Matt's appointment with the eye doctor went pretty well yesterday. They took pictures of his retinas and everything is fine - there's no swelling or broken blood vessels from the accident, so he thought Matt's vision would clear up eventually.

The doctor was trying to fit him with prisms over his glasses that would make the two images he sees come together. However, Matt's aphasia was causing too much difficulty in determining when the prisms were actually working and if the images were closer together or further apart. He figured it was worse to have the wrong prisms than nothing at all, so we'll have to go back later once Matt can communicate more clearly.

He did put tape over one lens of Matt's glasses which will block out the extra image for right now while still allowing light into his eye. So no more patch - which Matt isn't sure is so great. I think he was used to it and isn't happy about adjusting to something new. Then this morning I gave him just his glasses and asked him how many of me he sees and he said "one, but you suck." :-)So I think he's just fine.

Tuesday evening

Monday's therapies went really well - Matt stood on his own for about 10 minutes in PT. He started today with more math in speech and it wiped him out for most of the day. His therapist wrote down the numbers 1-10 and gave Matt addition problems to complete in his head. It was fascinating to watch him point to the correct answers, but say the wrong number out loud. He keeps getting caught on certain words and repeats them for everything. For math problems, he always says '10'. For everything else he wants to tell us, its 'global positioning system' or 'too much TV'.


I try to always ask him if he wants me to come along to his therapy sessions, and this week is the first time he's ever said no. He's on his way to becoming more independant - he's learned how to transfer in/out of his wheelchair without any assistance. I stand by just in case, but he pretty much doesn't need help anymore.

This afternoon his OT handed him the brace he wears on his right leg and told Matt to put it on. I was trying to figure out how he was going to pick up his right leg, move the foot rest, hold onto the brace, and put it around his leg all with one hand. Meanwhile, Matt looked at it and figured it all out. Motor planning is not an issue.

Sunday evening

Matt had a great weekend. He napped a lot, but had a great time in between with many visitors. He seemed happier than I've seen him in awhile - maybe because he's getting tired of seeing us all the time and got to see friends yesterday. ;-)

Matt's speech therapist is giving him homework now, so we worked on that for a little while yesterday morning and today. Math is hard! He did 5 addition problems and then had to take a nap. This morning he worked on generating words and got through a good list before he needed a break. I hope he continues to have speech in two 1/2 hour sessions this week, because language is definately the hardest thing for him. I think his ST is proud of making Matt more tired than he is from physical therapy.

Time flies

We came to Crotched Mountain one month ago and I cannot believe where Matt is compared to December 14th. He's walked (still with his PT moving his right leg) all the way from the gym to his room 4 days in a row, which is quite the feat. He's eating most of his meals in the dining room now and doesn't seem so overwhelmed by activity and noise. He's doing better than 50% when he id's pictures in speech therapy. And he seems to recall more and answers questions much more reliably.

He has a few upcoming appointments that are going to be big steps in his recovery. Next Wednesday he's going to see a neuro optomotrist to get his double vision figured out. Hopefully this will allow him to stop wearing an eye patch and help with his headaches. Then in a few weeks we go back to Dartmouth for a CT scan and to visit his surgeon. Think healing thoughts for the next 2 weeks and hopefully the scan will show no more swelling. We don't know how soon he would have surgery after that, but the sooner he gets the skull flap back in the better!

Wednesday morning

What a difference its made for Matt to get his meds figured out! Now he's not taking the blood pressure lowering medicine and he gets a small dose of oxycodone right away in the morning. He's been wide awake and ready for therapies for 3 days in a row - and he mostly stays awake in between, too, which is something completely new. This morning he didn't even want to go back to his room after therapy so we went and sat out in the hallway.

We then had to figure out something to do while he waits for his next session. His OT had given him word searches a few weeks ago, and once we figured out that 'paint book' meant those activity sheets he was very happy. He read through a large list of words searching for 'orange' before he got tired.

There's a whole list of other small steps of progress he's made, but he's ready for therapy, so I'll post that later.

Sunday morning

Matt says he's causing us too much trouble, but really he's just keeping us entertained and busy, which is why I keep forgetting to blog. He was dealing with pretty bad headaches this week that kept him out of therapy and sleeping a lot.

Yesterday they decided to start the day with a small dose of oxy hoping to keep his headaches at bay rather than knocking him out with a large dose once he gets a headache. It seemed to work fairly well and he's been in rare form since then. He's recalling all of his one-liners and jokes better than other vocab so we spend a lot of time laughing.

We're not sure if its due to the injury or the fact that he was working the night shift before the accident, but he comes alive late at night. His speech therapist can hardly believe the stories we tell of what Matt has said because he never sees that side of Matt in the morning when he's sleepy. We've tried to tell him to come and hang out with us at night, but we'll see. It's nice for us because we can go back to the room to sleep feeling pretty good about Matt's condition.

No more tubes!

Matt is finally tube free! This afternoon Carol, his nurse practitioner, removed his g-tube that he had been getting food/meds through. He's been off the tube food for awhile - no surprise that Matt has a healthy appetite and will eat just about everything they put in front of him. They did want to wait awhile to try swallowing pills, but that went just fine on Sunday, so today was the day. It took about 2 seconds, but Carol wanted to make sure that we knew it was a huge step in his recovery. There are many patients who've been here much longer than Matt and still have their tubes.

Other than that, Matt had a slow day of rest - he's fighting headaches again and the medicine knocks him out. First thing this morning, he wanted meds, so I asked if he just wanted Tylenol or needed oxycodon, and he said "oxy - boom." Which is exactly what happens when he gets it- he was out for most of the morning. He had a little bit of therapy this afternoon, but then he had more issues with his blood pressure being too low, so he's back asleep, hoping for a more theraputic day tomorrow.

Tuesday evening

You won't believe what Crotched Mountain has - bowling lanes! Its candlepin bowling which took Matt a little while to get used to, but he figured out rather quickly how to work from his wheelchair and managed to beat me for a few frames. He's pretty excited to have the ability to go back there on the weekends.

Also, it's in the basement of the next building over, so it took a long time for Matt to manuever himself there, then we bowled for awhile, and then he made it almost all the way back. After this he had 1.5 hours of therapy, followed by lunch, and then another hour of therapy. He couldn't quite handle his last session this afternoon, but what a day! He is working harder and harder every day and its pretty amazing to be along for the ride.

Good New Year

Guess who got to visit yesterday! You should have seen Matt's eyes light up when we told him he could go outside and see Freddie. It's pretty cold and we have a lot of snow up here, so we couldn't stay outside for very long, but it made Matt's day. Our friends who are watching Freddie hadn't seen Matt in two weeks and were amazed at how he's progressing. And we were amazed at the differences they talked about, too - we've all forgotten the steps he's been through.

We've talked about writing all these things down, but we're not sure Matt's going to want to know and we're not sure we want to remember either! I figure this blog will be great for him if/when he wants to know what happened and that all the comments will be so helpful when rehab gets tough.