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February 25 - Another week--where does the time go? Although sometimes not fast enough. Lisa had a good week her in Phila. She still continues therapies and school. This week they added another therapy. It is an Art/Music Group for Teens. Usually parents don't go to it, so I didn't. She said she had a good time with the few kids that were there. Therapies continue: PT--she walked to the main building, which involved a ramp and two sets of steps. She did this a few times and did quite well. She didn't get tired and the steps weren't a problem at all. She also did the other skills she had been doing (biking, backward treadmill, basketball skills, and balance beam work). OT--she continues to work on the computer for hand -eye coordination; she had some motor/fine coordination testing; and tested hand grasps--which they found was quite weak. So she is doing exercises to strengthening her hands and arms. School--continues reading skills, math (is doing fractions), journal writing, and group work (speaking in front of people, sharing thoughts and ideas). Had homework several days on nouns, verbs, and paragraph comprehension. Speech--doing cross work puzzles, word search puzzles, and deduction puzzles. She does well with these but it takes her a bit of time. She continues with word recognition etc. Eating is getting soooo much better. We are finding many more foods she likes (many of them she didn't like three weeks ago). She now thinks beef stew and chicken fried rice are some things she could eat at every meal. Breakfast is the smallest meal of the day. Actually she eats a good variety but not a lot of the food--gets full fast. Her tube feedings have been cut to only 3 hours during the night and nothing in the day. She is drinking all the water and fluids she needs by mouth and is taking all her medication by mouth. We have been told that the plan (at this point) is for her to be done inpatient therapy in the beginning of April sometime. We don't know what then--maybe outpatient or day therapy. We are pleased to hear of an ending date for this step of the process but still not sure what will be next. February 18 - Another week has ended and I (Jean) continue to see progress and the guidance of God in Lisa's life. She continues with therapies and activities that show where her strength and endurance is. We watched Cinderella on TV and had popcorn together. She liked the popcorn, which she hadn't had in over two months. Her eating has improved a lot. She now has added more foods to her like list (beef stew, tacos, hot dogs, trail mix-without the raisins etc). She has been eaten her goal of 75& at the lunch and supper meals so that she doesn't have to have tube feeding during the day. She did this all week! We had a good Valentine's Day. We received many cards, gifts and even flowers (Lisa claimed them for herself even though the card said to my two special girls). We made some Valentine cards for some of the staff and patients and handed them out and they did in return. Therapies are still going well. She is doing computer and memory games to increase her word recognition and memory skills. She baked cupcakes and frosted with chocolate frosting (another thing she has found to be tasty (chocolate). She is working on reading, math spelling, categories of words etc. She uses the stationary bike, treadmill, (this week she had to walk it backwards--if you don't think that is hard, try it!) and balance exercises. She is taking a lot of her medications by mouth and drinking a lot of extra water so it doesn't have to be given by the tube. Friday night the tube feeding during the night has to be only given 6 hours (before it was give 10 hours--if she keeps this up, she will get the tube out soon). The therapists are still amazed at how well she is going. Things are coming back and memory is improving. They try tasks but are always ready to go the step harder because she usually succeeds at the first step. Its great to see their smiles when she does it right. Thank you all for your cards, prayers, thoughts, and gifts. We are getting comments from the staff here that Lisa must be really loved by so many. We know that is true and can feel it everyday. We look at the web site sometimes--Lisa thinks it is something else to have her pictures on the computer! February 11 - This week has been exciting. Lisa is still doing therapies: OT-is using the computer to play games and do some emails. She is able to read emails with some help and she typed a relay message to a few people with both hands not always hitting the right keys but getting better each day. I see an improvement in her accuracy and concentration each day. PT-continues to do exercise to build endurance and strength (bike, treadmill, standing on rolls, throws ball into a target area, and walking). She is able to do much more exercising before she needs a break. Speech-Continues to work on orientation information (day, month, year, people's names etc) She is getting better at remembering even though she doesn't all the time. School-She started school for a 1/2 hour class Wed-Fri. She is doing so well that they will have her do 1 hour every day next week. She has surprised them by how well she can concentrate, work with distractions (other kids in the room, noise...), and work independently. She is working on organization skills, memory skills, reading and writing, math (adding, subtracting, multiplying). Eating-slow going. Her appetite is slow to return. She says she doesn't like more things. So far the baked potato and plain egg noodles have been a hit. She is willing to try a bit of everything for me but usually said no more Mom, please no more. The goal is for her to eat 75% of the meal so she doesn't have to get the tube feeding amount for that meal. On Friday at supper she met the goal for the first time this week! She is talking much clearer and much more (Sometimes not stop). We watched the Super Bowl and she kept up with the action. Since I don't know football--she explained some of it to me. We had a room change this week. I thought it would really bother her not to have a private room with the door closed, nut she didn't mind the change and I think she has really adjusted well. We sure see God working every day. As one therapist explained: We saw her explode physically last week and mentally this week. Praise God! Prayer concerns continual as the previous week stated. Pray for her appetite to return, for strength and endurance as she does therapy, and for the cognitive process to be relearned. Praise for the amount for relearning we have seen and the strength she has to do the therapy and school work. Praise that the room change was no big deal. February 4 - This has been another great week
Speech-She taste tested 10 supplement drinks to see which one she liked the best (She picked the vanilla milkshake flavor). She has started to eat--she chews and swallows well but doesn't seem to have the appetite for food so she is still getting the tube feedings. She is also looking at pictures to identify what they are and what they are used for (repeating this process helps relearn brain function). PT-She continues to walk (is gaining strength each day-can walk with very little contact from staff--she is impulsive (part of the brain injury) and safety is always a concern). She danced to some of her music and stands to do tasks to build up her endurance. She has a new wheelchair since she doesn't need one that tips back or has a head rest (because she can hold her head up by herself now). She is pushing her own wheelchair by using the extensions on the wheels. She had two test this week 1)Hearing test--both ears have normal hearing; 2)eye test--the doctors think the left eye is seeing well but think the right eye probably doesn't have any sight in it. She has passed the "frustration stage". There still are times when she can't get her point across but we able able to work through it better than last week. She still laughs and makes jokes, enjoys visitors, mail, and has started watching TV again. (When she discovered we could lay on her sides she didn't watch too much TV). She is working hard at therapy but does get tired very easy. When she is tired of doing whatever she says "Good night" to mean go away so I can Sleep! The therapists work around her good night comments until the hour is up. |
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February 25
February 18
February 4
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