Busy, Busy Day

I never thought this day would come... Randy asked for a haircut! He has been debating whether or not to grow his hair out again. I guess he decided to keep it short.

He had a busy day today. He got up at the same time I got up today (around 5:45), so his day started early. He had a 9 am appointment with Harborview opthamologist. He made it to Harborview, but shortly after getting out of the car, he got sick. Since he spent a lot of the rest of the day in the car, he never did feel quite right. As soon as his stomach would start to settle down, we would have to get back in the car and head to the next thing. I felt bad for him.

At Harborview, Randy saw Dr Almond (a resident). She tested his sight with letters on a screen. There was a difference ~ he was less able to read them than last time. She also tested the pressures in his eyes. They were different from last time, but not in a way that should be a problem. Last time Randy was there, they had tried some eye drops to help with the eye muscle spasms. Today, they gave Randy the drops while in the office and the prescribed them for the next two weeks. Dr Mudumbal (the neuro opthamologist that worked alongside the resident) said that Randy overcompensates with his eyes and the drops should help by paralyzing the muscles that focus the eye. We shall see how much they help during the next couple of weeks. He goes back for a follow up visit in 6 weeks. He was really hoping that the drops would help with his double vision, but they had no affect on it.

After the opthamologist, Randy's mom dropped him off at my office. I took the afternoon off to take him to the Neurophsychologist, Dr Lloyd. Randy had an evaluation with Dr Lloyd while he was in rehab at Good Samaritan. That evaluation was just to get a base point for when Randy would go in for his full evaluation. When I had scheduled the appointment for today, Dr Lloyd's receptionist had misunderstood me and she only scheduled us for an hour, but the evaluation that Dr Lloyd wants to do with Randy is a full day affair. So we didn't get to accomplish what we wanted today, but Dr Lloyd still met with us and answered some questions we had. Most of the questions were from Randy. He wanted to know about the evaluation, specifically whether the evaluation could give him some insight on how far he is off from getting to return to work, if the evaluation could test his current IQ and how it can be compared to his previous IQ (previous meaning prior to the accident). To that last question, Dr Lloyd explained that there are methods to test what a person's level of intelligence was prior to head injury. He didn't elaborate much more than that, but it intrigued me, so I plan on researching it. The question I asked was whether or not there was any correlation between the score of the Glasgow Coma Scale at time of injury and the outcome of a person's recovery. He said there have been studies on that and there is believed to be a correlation. I plan to research that more as well. The lowest score on the Glasgow scale is a 3 and Randy was at a 5. I am interested in seeing what the studies have shown for those who scored so low on the scale. I personally believe Randy is doing amazing things.

He told me tonight that he is using what he learned from controlling processes at work to help him during his recovery with things such as putting together a process (the steps) for things that he does on a regular basis. He is definitely missing being at work. Many people have told him that they envy the time off he is getting. It was always hard for me to pull Randy away from his work. He is definitely a process guy!