Monday 14Apr

 Today was a bit tougher than our previous days. We had a hard night last night with Lincoln's birthday. We started a tradition a few years back that we would all stay up until 11:57 PM on Lincoln's birthday since that was the time he was born. Well obviously this year we were unable to do this since Brian's in the hospital. It hit us all really hard last night and especially Lincoln. 

So this carried over into all our emotions today, unfortunately. 

Brian started out his day today with ADLs to get ready for the day. Then after ADLs he had a solo session with his psychologist followed immediately with speech. After speech Brian had a co-treat with another speech therapist and OT. In this session they worked him with dual tasking. This is something that is extremely taxing for him post brain injury. When Brian is focusing on an activity right now, it can be difficult to interrupt him and it also causes him to get upset often. This is challenging because when we get into the "real world" focusing on a single activity is very challenging because our worlds are full of distractions. This is something that we have seen for awhile that Brian doesn't do well when trying to do more than one thing in quick succession or at the same time (one example from early on that has definitely improved is listening while walking). So in the session this morning, Brian built circuits as part of OT and then his speech therapist interrupted him a couple times to talk to him about what he was doing. Brian actually did better than I had expected with this and didn't really get too frustrated. 

And then we had PT. Today was a challenging day for us with PT. We are working towards getting out in the "real world" and with that involves working outside the hospital a bit. The hospital is like a bubble that I hadn't even really thought was so significant until today. We were walking around looking for little free libraries around the hospital and some of this involved crossing some busier streets not at stop lights. This was new since when we out last week, we didn't have to cross any streets without crosswalks and stop lights. This session was a learning opportunity for both of us, and it was rocky to start, but it did improve. This was especially difficult for me today. It felt a bit like reality came crashing down around me. Brian is great in the hospital and we do really well there. But that is also an environment where brain injuries are all they do and they know exactly how to handle that. I clearly still have a lot of learning to do and it was made very clear today that the "real world" will be a significant change from the hospital world. 

Now that is not great of course, but let's put the positive spin on this that we all would rather read. 😊 This reality check was bound to happen and it is so good it happened now rather than when it is just Lincoln and I managing on our own. We had support today while we struggled through our session. In addition to that, we still have time at Craig where we can work to improve these skills. I also now know how to better work with Brian when we are doing activities like this (which I don't think will be often, but won't be never). Having the resources available to support us and being able to fully rely on the staff at Craig is so helpful. 

Brian and I also talked about it after the fact because I was upset with our hard night last night and then the difficulties in the session and I kinda broke down for a bit in his room after that. The discussion was really beneficial because we both could acknowledge that we both need to improve and we are both there to support each other. 

This situation is so hard and most days I am pretty good at keeping it positive, but today wasn't that day for me. But we all (Lincoln included) agreed that tomorrow is a new day and we will have a better day tomorrow. 

🤍