TIRR Week 4

Hello all,

Mom has now been at TIRR for one month now and she has made significant progress. Although her movement has been forward, we are constantly reminded of how far we have to go on this journey of recovery.

Her sessions in Physical and Occupational therapy are more intense each day and she works extremely hard in each session and is generally wiped out at 4 pm when the sessions end. On Friday she was strapped into the walking harness and lifted on to the treadmill walking machine. With the assistance of the lifting harness and four therapists she was put through a walking process that lasted 45 minutes. These were five minute walking movements followed by an equal amount of rest! She will do this again this week. The machine was funded by the Christopher Reeves foundation and is a godsend for patients like our Mom.
She also used an upright walking frame this afternoon and with significant assistance was able to travel 45 feet and 68 feet in two difficult moves. These are all steps towards hopefully regaining the ability to walk in the future.

When she leaves TIRR, probably near the end of March, we remain hopeful that we will be able to bring her home. She will be in a wheelchair likely for some time to come and Dad has been practicing hard on the transfers necessary to make any movements into and out of bed and into chairs. The transfers are getting easier as Mom is gaining strength and is doing greater than 50% of the work.

She continues to work hard with the speech therapists but still struggles to clearly articulate all of the words. Some days are better than others but when mom is very tired it can be very difficult to understand her words and unfortunately this can lead to a lot of frustration. The speech team also continues to work with her on swallowing and has advanced her to a chopped diet which is a bit more appealing than the puréed food. She is also now attending an eating class at lunch and has begun working to feed herself. It's a bit messy right now but she is getting better and gaining a sense of independence. She is also working on regaining the ability to drink thin liquids. Brain injury patients generally have a lot of difficulty swallowing and thin liquids are the most difficult as they cause her to choke. All of her drinks now have to be thickened and she can handle these well.

The simple things that we take for granted are all magnified in their difficulty for Mom and simple everyday tasks are major complex movements. Her ability to eat more is leading to an effort to ween her off the feeding tube which will still likely be retained for a few months. The speech team also works with musical therapy getting mom to sing a few words. It's great to hear her do this. She loves to sing along with the Elvis tune "Hound Dog".

One of the most challenging things that mom is dealing with is double vision. This also effects all of her therapies as hand and eye coordination are critical with all movements. Dad has been working hard to fashion some comfortable eye patches for her to wear in lieu of the pirate patch which she doesn't like one bit! This eye condition may improve over time, but it will probably be a year before we know for sure. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to do just about anything, when everything is double vision, but Mom never complains, she just keeps on trying hard. She is soooo strong!

Yesterday mom took her first group field trip away from the hospital to visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science to explore the dinosaur exhibit. Dad was able to join her and they had a good time getting out for about two hours. Learning to "get around" in a wheelchair is now a part of our daily lives and it was great practice for Mom and Dad to get out! They are becoming wheelchair pros!

This past weekend we were blessed to have a visit from Dad's sister Mary Ellen. She brought pictures from her New York trip and mom truly enjoyed seeing and hearing about all the good times with our cousins Melissa and Jessica. Mom even showed off a few of her physical therapy activities for Mary Ellen, such as her standing at the bar frame and pedaling on the bicycle frame. It was a great visit and she gave Mom renewed spirit.

Thanks again to all for the continued thoughts and prayers being sent our way. This recovery will surely be measured in years and we pray that our mom can gain as much independence as God will allow.

Love, Rachel and John Sedlak