Wednesday 12Feb - Important visitor info!

 

Today was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Brian had honestly the best day yet. Today was transfer day (WE HAVE FINALLY MADE IT TO THE LTAC!) and Brian WALKED today! Physical therapy came by this afternoon and got Brian up in a different type of stander and had him pull himself up and try to march in place. He did so well with that they wanted to try walking! So she grabbed a walker and he walked from him room to the windows. Probably 40-50 feet. 

Brian was also very talkative today. I think now that he has realized he has the ability to talk he wants to try and talk to us a lot. He is still very difficult to hear and understand, but I am getting better at it understanding him and he is getting better at enunciating. This will also continue to improve as he works with the speech therapist. Prior to discharge to the LTAC Brian also did a swallow study and did great! Unfortunately it sounds like the LTAC will want to do their own swallow study before Brian will be allowed to eat. 

Okay, now for the difficulty that today brought. Well one, the obvious, we left all the amazing staff at Good Samaritan. I am not kidding when I say they literally changed our lives. Brian also was very much in the agitated stage of the Rancho Scale today. He was pretty frustrated and was having a bit of a tough time understanding why he even needed to stay in the hospital. He kept trying to climb out of bed, which is an obvious safety hazard for him. Another difficulty is just how life will be at the LTAC in general. We have accomplished a lot at the hospital with the various therapists and that is partially because in the hospital they are willing to take big steps. After speaking with the doctor, it sounds like LTAC is going to be a different strategic plan. They are gonna take much slower steps when it comes to therapy. I have to make sure to keep myself in check here and not think about the "slowness" of his recovery when compared to the hospital. 

An additional difficulty is visitors. This place prohibits children under 12. Also the LTAC room is smaller than I had anticipated with basically no seating (there is a window bench). There is also no waiting room close at all. So this will prove difficult when we have visitors because visitors should still be kept to 2-3 at a time, and it is way more difficult to swap out here since there is no waiting room. So with this in mind, if you want to visit, please please let me know first so we can try and coordinate and also make sure our visitor count isn't too high. So with that in mind, maybe Facetimes will be better for chatting with Brian for a bit (depending on approval from docs since screens and brain injuries usually should not be mixed). I also expect them to provide a therapy schedule for Brian which will also significantly limit the times that are appropriate for visitors. When I know that I will let everyone know. 

🤍