Today was a very busy day! After getting Cass to school, Randy and I headed to Seattle for the results of his neuropsych evaluation. It was a good evaluation ~ I felt very positive upon leaving the doctor's office.
Dr Fordyce said that, with old knowledge and vocabulary skills, when the exercises were not timed, Randy scored above average. He was actually in the 95 percentile. I think that is pretty amazing. His biggest deficit was with problem solving skills that required visual perception. He scored below average in that area. When it comes to visual things, his processing speed is very slow. This is what also affects his ability to drive. With memory, Randy did good with things that were logical and organized, such as words that related to each other or stories. However, when it came to trying to remember to remember lists of things that were unrelated, Randy would do well in the immediate recall, but if asked later, he couldn't remember any. He would also get the unrelated things mixed up with stories or the other lists of things ~ so it all became jumbled together. Another thing the doctor commented on was Randy's inability to be concise in conversation (which is a nice way of saying that he tends to talk too much). He personal opinion is that Randy is not ready to return to work yet because of the deficit with the processing of visual information, but he felt that it was time for Randy to begin working with a vocational therapist to start to path to getting back to work. I felt this was definitely a postive thing. The vocational therapist that Randy met with at Harborview a few weeks ago told Randy (without having any realy knowledge of how far along Randy was) was too early in the game and should come back in a few months. I think it made Randy feel good to have Dr Fordyce believe that Randy was further along than that and ready to start this process. We tried contacting Boeing's vocational rehab, but for some reason they don't have Randy in the system and we didn't have time today to sort that out, so that will need to wait until next weeek.
We got done with that appointment just in time to grab lunch and head to see Randy's primary care physician. She increased Randy's Gabapentin, which is the medication that is to help his nerves heal. She also gave him some medication for motion sickness. She gave him pills to take on as needed basis and then gave him a patch to wear by his ear for when he rides on the plane to see my parents in a few weeks. She also gave him a presciption to get massages on his left side since when I was rubbing his left arm, it seemed to help bring back some feeling in those fingers that he doesn't have much feeling in. I am hoping that having it done by a professional on a semi-regular basis can help repair some of the damage in those nerves to bring back some of that feeling.
All in all, we had good visits with the doctors today and felt that we got a lot accomplished.
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