Making Progress, Slowly but Surely

Carol and I had the opportunity to watch Jon at occupational therapy today. His task was to remove little blocks which were velcroed to squares on a "checkerboard" by their handles and hang them on rods. It was an excellent small motor exercise. He removed all 20 from the board hanging them carefully on rods and then discovered he was only half way through the exercise! He then had to remove them from the rods, one by one, and place them back on the board! It took 25 agonizing minutes-both for him and us but he completed the job! We were both very proud of him.

We have discovered how much he likes salads which he eats twice a day but lettuce and carrots don't exactly top the nutritional, or the caloric, scale. He does drink at least half of his milk and does well with fruit cocktail. We are still working on building up his confidence in his ability to feed himself.

He has had some problems with the muscles in his arm seemingly atrophying. At one point he could get his elbows back far enough that he could reach the pegs on the wheels of the wheelchair but now it hurts to even try to get his arms that far back. "Working through the pain" is not an expression that sits well on his ears!

The doctor was in at supper time for his daily rounds and told us that he would be getting a smaller trach--I had thought he was at the smallest one already but was mistaken. In a few days they will cap the trach during the day and he will be breathing through his mouth, and nose? During the night he will have the cap taken off so he will be breathing in the old, more familiar, way. The next step will be to remove the trach altogether.

The trach seems to be the last hurdle to being accepted to Dodd Hall in Columbus although the situation involving the mucous plugs was explained to them and it didn't seem as much a problem then. Dodd Hall has no available beds this week but probably will next week. They only do admissions on Wednesday and Thursday. The weather being as it is this week it probably is best to wait another week anyway.

Mental confusion and stubbornness seem to be the biggest problems for his family. We can't seem to get the concept of practice, practice, practice through to him--just working during the time allotted for physical therapy seems to satisfy him. (However, I was extremely pleased to see that he was using a combination of movements in the occupational exercise.) He has days when he "talks" motivated but it doesn't carry through.