Monday 03Feb

Today was another good day for Brian. 

I have mentioned before how much Brian liked the sitting in his recliner. Today both physical therapy and occupational therapy were in Brian's room today and helped to get him set up sitting in a wheelchair today. The wheelchair is another great option for him to sit up and since he has the seatbelt, he can sit even more upright. He was a bit unsure when he first got all situated in the wheelchair, but he got settled in there pretty quickly. Prior to the move to the chair, I asked him if he wanted to sit in the chair and he said yes. After he got moved over to the chair, I asked him if he liked sitting in the chair and he said yes again. 

Shortly after they got him moved to the chair, speech therapy came in with respiratory. They were going to put a cap on his trach. This is kinda hard to explain, but I will try my best. I have mentioned previously that Brian cannot speak or eat with the trach he currently has in, but I was a bit misinformed. He will be able to, but the configuration of it prevented him from speaking and swallowing. This is because there is a little balloon at the end of the trach that prevents any air from going up his trachea and forces all the air in and out to go through his trach. When the balloon is deflated and the trach is capped with the one way cap, the air out is forced to go through his vocal folds and then out his nose or mouth. The speech therapist also mentioned that deflating the balloon can help Brian to regulate the pressures related to his breathing, so really all great things to help Brian return to normalcy.

Today they deflated the balloon on Brian's trach to see how he tolerated it. As with everything, it needs to be taken slowly to avoid pushing Brian too hard. But he did phenomenal with the balloon deflated (I asked him if it felt different after they deflated the balloon and he nodded) so the speech therapist tried to get him to make some noise. The goal for today was just any noise to see that his vocal cords were functioning. We told Brian he could talk and he nodded, but was reluctant to try it. The speech therapist stayed in the room for a bit to see if he would make some noise. He did cough a few times and made sound. So this is exactly what the speech therapist wanted to hear! 

With all the therapists coming by to work with Brian today, he was very tired after his time in the chair (which was to be expected) but Brian did so so good today and showed some real strong progress today. 

🤍