Randy had 4 hours of rehab today. His day started off doing the usual getting dressed session. Every day he gets a little better with it. The therapist is having him stand up now to brush his teeth to help work on his balance and he was pretty steady.
Most of his sessions today were late morning and throughout the afternoon so after breakfast he played the Brain Age game I got him for the nintendo ds. He was doing amazing with it. There is one exercise on it where you have to count the syllables within the given sentence and he got most of them right. Then he wanted to keep working on it, so he did some mathmatics. There was one exercise that he was having a little bit of a hard time with, so I helped him with writing it out. Later in the day, during his occupational therapy class, when she was working with him with getting change back, he grabbed a pen and started writing things down to help him work through it and he did much better today with figuring out the right change than he did the other times he had done that exercise.
Also during occupational therapy, she tested his strength again in his arms and his left arm has gained some. He was also able to almost straighten that arm ~ he was only 5 degrees off. It is definitely getting better and he is trying so hard to get it working. Another thing he did in occupational therapy was to work with the phonebook again. She asked him to look up a pizza place. He struggled a little with it and then commented that it would be easier to use the internet. When she asked him to read a phone number in the book, he wasn't able to do it. They still need to get a doctor to test his eyes. She also worked on testing his perception. She would show him a picture of something and then flip the page and he would have to find that item amongst 4 items that were similar. He did quite well, though there were a few times that he would choose the inverted image.
For physical therapy, he continued to work with walking. His steps are getting better ~ he is keeping his feet more apart rather than stepping one right in front of the other, which is great. At the last session, he was dealing with some light-headedness. I am hoping it was just from him being so tired from having such a long day.
I asked for a wheelchair that was a little lower to the ground. The one he had, his feet didn't quite touch the ground. With this lower one, he can "walk" himself around and work on getting his left leg working a bit more throughout the day.
The last type of therapy he had today was speech therapy. She did some tests with him and he did great. She gave him a bunch of pictures and then handed him a sentence and he had to find the picture that went with the sentence. He got all of them. She also showed him pictures and he had to name the item in the picture. When they did this test on Saturday, he struggled. He did so much better today. She also did the test where she gave him a letter and he had to name as many words as he could that started with that letter with a time limit of one minute. Saturday, he wasn't able to do this. He struggled a little, but was able to get more than Saturday. She also played the concentration matching game with him and he did quite well with that. She asked him what he wanted to work on and she mentioned a few things, such as his speech, reading, his writing skills, and his memory. It was kind of cool ~ I was able to tell her that I have been working on his reading (and the only issue he has right now is his eyesight, he needs larger print) and I have had him writing and he is doing quite well with that too. Then Randy started telling her about the brain game and she commended me for all of the stuff we are working on. What I think is really great, though, is that Randy really wants to work on these things. He wants to go home and will do whatever he needs to in order to get there!
The speech therapist also gave him a planner so that he can start writing down what he does throughout the day to help his memory.
One very cool thing that happened today was one of Randy's coworkers came by (she came during one of his phsycial therapy sessions so she got to see him in action!) and she brought him ice cream. He loved it (thank you Liz!!) It made a great after dinner snack this evening for him.
Tomorrow he gets another overly full day ~ another 4 hours scheduled with the last class ending at 4:30.
2 comments:
Randy and Rachel,
It was great seeing you both yesterday. Randy, you are taking your recovery on with such determination and stick-to-it-ness (is that a word?)! It kind of reminds me of the way you were with getting your procedure word files correct.... so obviously you are on the right road. Keep those muscles moving and that brain churning!
Rachel, thanks for keeping up such an informative blog; you are a talented writer. People like to help, so posting what you need is a great idea.
Take care,
Liz Rising
Rachel , this is all so amazing, to "watch" Randy's progress the way you allow us to - thank you so much. Well, there seems so little to say - you deserve so much praise and encouragement for all you are doing, and the progress is so phenomenal! May God keep you and guard you, granting you rest when you need it and the continued discernment to take care of your loved ones.
PLEASE post anything else you need - we want to help!
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