Thursday 13Mar

 Happy Thursday!

Today was a good day for Brian! He has OT to start his day today and then immediately had PT. He then had a nice long break where we could relax and rest before his afternoon classes. He ended his day with speech and a visit with his psychologist. We even got to go and hang out outside for a little bit today while in between classes. 

And want to know something totally crazy? We just by coincidence passed by one of the nurses Brian had at the Johnstown LTAC while walking the halls today. She now works at Craig! That was pretty crazy to see her. 

I had mentioned Brian's behavior plan previously this week. That was ready and I went over that with his behavioral specialist. She already said that after the other day she had a few edits she wanted to make but at least the first draft was ready. It did mention a lot of what we had already discussed verbally such as keeping a consistent schedule, his 1:1 with the techs, and his safety devices. She did kind talk through what she is also recommending for corrections and deterrents for Brian as well as what she has seen for triggers for him. This is mainly for staff to know what to do and what not to do when working with Brian and she also specified that it is mainly for when he has coverage and not his normal staff. Since his normal staff has worked with him for the past two week, they are comfortable with him and know a bit better of what to avoid. 

For this group who may be wanting to visit later here are the important things. This weekend his team feels it's best to still keep it to minimal visitors and short visits since we really need to keep that stimulation a bit lower over the weekend so Brian can recover from the week. Overall this week was better than the previous week, so I am hoping the visitor limitations will go away by next weekend, we just have to see how next week goes. But this information will still be relevant then too.  Important things to pay attention to are not too many people in the room, keep visits short, and keep the environment low stimulation. Low stimulation for Brian specifically means keep the environment calm (whether it is in his room, the bistro, family gathering, or outside, it still should be calm), try to have only one person talking at a time, and don't leave Brian out of the conversation (like whisper about him when he's sitting across the room).