The Week in Review

Overall it has been a good week for Jon. We have an entirely new type of bed. It has fluidity . . . little glass beads surrounded by silica gel are swishing their way around in the top part of the mattress. It almost looks like someone was popping popcorn. This motion is to prevent new bedsores; the silica is to absorb any moisture and keep the bedsore dry. At the size of Jon’s sore it would take over a year to heal. The manufacturer claims to heal it 4.4 times faster. It is not without its problems..the second day it started spitting fine silica on the floor. Feels extremely slick on the shoes! It was replaced and the second bed is doing well. I had a chance to look at the sore and it looks much better. Now the biggest problem is that it can’t have more than one layer on top of the mattress which is almost like chiffon. This tends to make anything on it shift downward when the head is elevated. He would definitely have needed to wear his turtle shell if he had had this type of bed in March since he looks rather scrunched most of the time. The other problem is that since the door to the room has to be kept closed for temperature control around the bed many of the staff takes that as a sign that he is busy with someone else. We’re thinking that that is one possibility why he has missed his second shower this week. Since he missed both shower days the week before by being in the hospital he is well overdue! I thought I had the problem solved yesterday; I gave instructions for his neck brace, the bath bed was outside the door and so I went to lunch. When I got back nothing had been done and was informed it was too late since that shift had already gone home. We were assured it would be given this morning but that’s what they said last Saturday. Barb is there now since one nurse advised being there at 7 a.m. and I haven’t been getting up as early as she does.

A piece of good news- the wheelchair made its way back to Jon. He drove it down two halls and he parked in the dining room to eat lunch. I had good intentions of letting him feed himself but I was wrong about the chair being able to raise and lower itself to fit under tables. Since I couldn’t get a tray table to fit under the wheels of the chair …once I got it high enough…I gave up and fed Jon myself. The dining room was almost deserted and Jon was facing a beautiful glassed wall looking out on a patio. (He has had several meals where he fed himself entirely on his own.)

The wheelchair was adjusted in a few places and we asked about a tray and a place for an oxygen tank. The therapist is so sure we can get him off oxygen which is great but I think it would be handy to have that option in case he needs it at some future time. As we went down the hall we noticed a cute license on one of the other chairs similar to Jon’s that said “Wilson’s Mercedes.” we’ll have to see what kind of sign Jon wants on his.

The occupational therapist has brought a spongy pad to put under Jon’s dishes and a plate guard to give him something to push against when forking his food. She also found some silverware with fat handles that fit in his hand without being strapped in. She brought some pegs and a board but was interrupted and never made her way back. We’ll try to work with them ourselves.

The physical therapist is quite enthusiastic about getting Jon out of his room. He is doing some shoulder exercises to help give his lungs more room to breathe. I have looked over a report from Fort Wayne several times and completely glossed over the fact that he had fractured at least one shoulder blade in addition to the cracked ribs and blown vertebrae but Matt caught it when I gave him the report to read. One of his goals is to get Jon off of oxygen by strengthening his lungs,stretching his shoulder muscles to give the lungs room to expand and building some upper body strength to prepare for board transfers.

We have two different types of breathing apparatus to encourage deeper breathing but have found the advice of using them every hour to be impossible. I have a chart to help me to remember to exercise his arms, hands, shoulders, legs and feet …and breathing and the best I’ve been able to do in a long time was 2 complete cycles yesterday.

Diet wise Jon is eating regular foods. He finds some meats tough. The speech gal asked how he was doing and he complained about that so she gave him a couple of more exercises--then he got supper which was beef "tips” and noodles. Chunks of the beef had gristle and it was almost impossible to tell which ones did or didn’t. Plain tubular pasta without sauce is rather uninteresting and for some reason he thought the frozen peas were “tough” too. He’s never preferred canned peas so I’m not sure what his problem was. He has seemed rather “down” the last day or two so maybe that was it. They have been giving him Ensure to increase his nutrition intake 3 times a day--although yesterday I was sure it was four, possibly five! At any rate I had really been pushing it all day and we were already two behind when an aide brought another one for his evening snack! Regular meals are still supplemented by tube feedings but that runs only at night.

Again, we are impressed with the therapy programs but continue to be frustrated in the lack of staff. That is compounded by the work ethic of the aides who seem rather nebulous about calling in to say they’re not coming to work or are extremely late. There is also a great turnover in staff as we had noticed at CRSI and the admission director confirmed our observation saying that it was a problem throughout the health care industry. I’m not sure how much 12 hour shifts contribute to that. One compensation here is that they work 3 days and are off 3 days but I’m not sure they are on 12 hour shifts…those would kill me!

Brief update on the rest of the family: Josh had been wrestling and was in a foot hold when he heard several cracking sounds. Everything seemed all right when he walked on it except for some swelling and so he continued on his way for the next week but he did wear an ankle brace. The next weekend he was playing football and he fell on the already injured foot. I saw him come limping up the driveway and he showed me his ankle which looked like someone had inserted a hardboiled egg under the skin on top of his ankle bone. I agreed it needed x-raying so we went off to the hospital. They took pictures and said it was just sprained and gave him a more substantial brace to wear. A couple of days later they called to say that when the x ray was dry it looked like it had a hair line fracture and he should make an appointment with a doctor. He chose a different clinic and they took x rays also. They didn't see a break but decided to treat it as such and he has a walking cast. While Jon was in the hospital lat week at OSU Barb had a high fever and was feeling and looking more miserable than I think I've ever seen her so she went to the doctor and a CAT scan was ordered. We were concerned that she might have the infection Jon had. She was evidently so concerned about that possibility that she was positively joyous to find it was "just diverticulitis." She joins a long line of relatives with that ailment I understand. She had a check-up with her oncologist this last week and everything looks okay. I'm recovering from an ear, nose, throat infection but doing okay otherwise. Everyone else is fine healthwise as far as I know. Josh and Angelique are both celebrating birthdays this month. I cannot believe my youngest grandson will be 20!!!

Must go--Columbus has a really big arts and crafts show and ouor favorite artist from California is here. We are anxious to catch up on news of his health and his family. Hope you are enjoying the same weather we've been having.