Today was amazing!

I had too many good pictures to choose from today!

The day started out a bit rough for me. I went to work today. I made it one hour before I cried ~ I came across an email Randy had sent me the afternoon of the accident. It sucked being there away from him, but I will be going back tomorrow. Hopefully it will get easier!

When his mom and sister arrived at the hospital this morning, Randy was sleeping. I went there straight after work and by the time I got there, he was awake and the speech therapist was working with him. Before I got into the speech therapist stuff, I wanted to explain the first picture. This picture is off Randy talking on the phone to his dad. I let his hand out of the infamous glove and he held the phone. He did let go of it a few times to use his hand to readjust his left leg that he was crossing over onto his right leg and it kept slipping. It was just so great to watch him hold it!


Now back to the speech therapist. I missed the part where she tested his swallowing reflex, but he passed! She gave him ice chips, water from a straw, and applesauce and he did quite well with all of it. So, Randy has been approved for a puree diet. This second picture is of him eating dinner. They gave him quite a few choices to eat, the main being mashed potatoes, some stuff they said was turkey, and some stuff they said was corn. We gave him mainly the mashed potatoes and some milk. He did very well with it. We were told by the nurse not to over stimulate him while he was eating, but we were all so excited, so he got a little over stimulated. But he was able to tell us when he was full. He didn't eat a whole lot. But it is so exciting.

I did get into the room in time to get to see the speech therapists second half of her examination ~ the question part. She asked all but one of us to leave the room so he wouldn't be too distracted. I stayed in there. As she was asking him his name, though, he kept saying my name and as I walked to sit down, his eyes followed me and he continued to say my name. So I had to hide out of his line of sight. She asked him questions about his name. At first, he didn't answer correctly, but when she finally got his full attention, he did finally answer right. She then asked him if he lived in Chicago and he said no, and then asked him if he lived in Washington and he said yes. She then wrote two names on a piece of paper, one being his. Without saying either of the names, she asked him which name was his. Instead of answering her question, he said "Peter" which was the first name she had written down ~ he read the name off the paper!!!! Then she wrote down the words "pen" and "key" on another piece of paper and asked him what the first word was. He said "key" which was actually the second word on the paper, but he said it!

Later in the day, his mother was walking by the bed and he reached out and said "Hey Mom, can you get me to..." and then didn't finish his sentence. Then a little later, his mom was reading things that people had signed in the guest book. She mentioned to him that his Aunt Marilyn, Uncle Bill, and Andrew had visited him and he said "I was happy to see them". And then his mom saw the comment from Ken Langner and she asked Randy "Is that your boss". Randy responded with "That's my manager's manager." I don't know if that is accurate or not because I don't know the chain of command, but him just processing that was amazing! He also had a coworker, Sandi, visit him. She asked him if he knew her name. He said her last name. It was so amazing.

One last update ~ our amazing nurse, Becky, knew we had concerns with Randy's medication Seroquel, so she got the pharmacist to come in and talk to us about it. We discussed changing Randy's dosage from 4 25 mgs to 3 doses, 2 being 25 mgs and 1 being 50 to help him through the night. I like this idea. That would give him more alert time during the day and more restful time during the night. They are also lowering his blood pressure medicine and the medicine that helps with storming and impulsive movements, which means his body is really healing!

Today was great.