The week started out rather rough for Jon. Early Monday morning he had a difficult time breathing and after having several attempts to clear his lungs was sent on an emergency run to the hospital at 5:30 a.m. By the time I got there at 8 he had been sent home since he was alert, chipper and in the doctor’s view didn’t have any problem that needed to be dealt with. (They did, however, schedule a CAT scan for Wednesday to see more clearly what was going on in the left lower lobe of his lungs. Everything else is clear and healthy looking.) He’s not fond of therapy in the first place so he was not happy to find that we were insisting on therapy that afternoon.
Tuesday was a relatively calm day. I made it to St. Francis in the afternoon with Carol and I watched his physical and occupational therapy sessions. He has some cognitive problems that are slowly getting better but while he seems to understand what is being told to him it takes several seconds to process that information and then carry out the task. The next day he may need to be told the same information with the same degree of thoroughness as the day before...and again, with the same amount of processing time. When asked his address he usually gives mine since that’s where he’s always had his mail sent and he had been living there for several weeks before the accident. Instead of saying 191 he said 119. After much thought he gave Watson Road. He’s never lived on that road. When I told him he had the right numbers but in the wrong order he thought about it and then put the numbers in order and the street name just popped right out.
He seems to need to have his day follow a certain order and does not do well with changes. If he’s supposed to have a respiratory treatment and the other therapists come to get him for their therapy he is very vocal in his resistance. He doesn’t understand that the staff is very flexible and whoever is available at a certain time has priority over those who haven’t made it to his door yet.
Wednesday it was off to Fremont Memorial Hospital again for the CAT scan of his chest. Getting loaded onto the stretcher and taking the 15 minute ride to the hospital and back again is a big deal and he was quite disappointed to find that it still didn’t get him out of therapy. We told him that with Christmas on Thursday and then only meeting with them on Friday and then the week-end would leave him mighty stiff and a step or two backward without therapy and he finally agreed. He likes the machine that looks rather like bike pedals but work with your hands. His hands have to be strapped to the pedals since he hasn’t developed a grip yet. The machine has an odometer of some sort that shows how much energy has been expended. The next exercise had a similar charting capacity also. I’m hoping he can start competing against his last session’s numbers to get things going faster.
Today, we all packed up our presents and Christmas dinner and made the hour and a half trip to St. Francis for Christmas. Barb took a decorated tree and put it in his room. He was put into his wheel chair and came out to the dining hall to eat with us. Barb had set the tables in a “u” configuration and put him in the middle but when he was finished eating he asked to be moved back several feet. I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to hear everything that was going on but he said that was okay...moving that far back made it easier to see everyone since he can’t move his head from side to side due to the halo. Home cooking and good company makes it easier to eat and while it wasn’t a lot by any means it was the most he has eaten since passing the swallowing test last week. After clearing the table we passed out presents and opened them. Jon got several sets of socks, a yo-yo from me and a giant set of playing cards from his grandmother, a fuzzy throw blanket, a pair of slippers, and a digital photo album. We got several fleeting smiles from him throughout the afternoon and that’s quite an accomplishment!
Before leaving Jon asked if I had had a good Christmas. I said I did and asked how his was. He said, “it was good...I really enjoyed seeing everyone.” And so, despite all the changes in the day’s plans, (and believe me there were way too many to enumerate) it seems we accomplished what we had set out to do. We all hope that you had a Merry Christmas, also.
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