More on Sam's progress
Sam was moved out of the ICU on July 31 and has been in the primary care of the Respiratory team whose goal has been to stabilize him on the ventilator in preparation for moving to the Rehab unit.
After getting cleared to eat just about anything he wanted he overdid things a little bit last Wednesday and his tummy got mad at him and rebelled. So he's been pretty leery of eating anything since. Up until this Tuesday evening: I talked him into a bite of my chicken. That was all he wanted. Wednesday evening his dinner tray arrived and it was chicken and green beans, after getting some salt and pepper to season the chicken and green beans he took one bite of the chicken, three bites of the green beans and one bite of my nectarine! I was so proud of him and he had the biggest smile on his face. We're focusing on taking it nice and slow so there won't be any more tummy upsets this time around.
Other new stuff ~ Speech Therapy has started coming every day in the early afternoon to work with Sam on getting him talking again. In order to do that they have to deflate the cuff on his trach tube. Sam doesn't like it very much because it feels really weird to have air flow that he isn't in control of coming up into his mouth and leaking out around his trach tube. So we compromised by deflating is halfway. Tuesday he had the cuff deflated for 30 seconds. While the cuff was down Sam named the four seasons twice through and at the tail end of the time he was beginning to hear his voice! Wednesday he had the cuff deflated for a full minute and probably would have kept going if someone hadn't mentioned that the minute was up! During that session Sam read the names of the cards from a set of "Don't Bug Me" cards.
Sam had his last IV site removed on Tuesday. On Wednesday Occupational Therapy came and made him a splint for his right hand that will help keep his fingers from curling up. As soon as the splint the Orthopedic team put on his broken wrist comes off in another week he will get a similar splint made for that hand too.
Occupational and Physical Therapy come by every day to work on Sam's range of motion of all his extremities and get him up in a chair for a few hours. The muscle twitch/reflex movement in his limbs is almost constant now, to the point of being extremely uncomfortable, so we're discussing with the Rehab doctors how to make that a bit more comfortable for him. With the halo on, every time his muscles in his body twitch his neck also tenses and he can't move his neck to alleviate that strain.
Sam is scheduled to move to the Rehab unit on Monday as long as there is a room available. The doctors have told us that they'll try to get Sam a private room which is an exciting prospect for Sam as I've asked the staff and they've told me that we can probably have a sleepover with Thor and Trystan if he does get a private room! As soon as we know his new location we'll pass that information along.
Much love to all!
After getting cleared to eat just about anything he wanted he overdid things a little bit last Wednesday and his tummy got mad at him and rebelled. So he's been pretty leery of eating anything since. Up until this Tuesday evening: I talked him into a bite of my chicken. That was all he wanted. Wednesday evening his dinner tray arrived and it was chicken and green beans, after getting some salt and pepper to season the chicken and green beans he took one bite of the chicken, three bites of the green beans and one bite of my nectarine! I was so proud of him and he had the biggest smile on his face. We're focusing on taking it nice and slow so there won't be any more tummy upsets this time around.
Other new stuff ~ Speech Therapy has started coming every day in the early afternoon to work with Sam on getting him talking again. In order to do that they have to deflate the cuff on his trach tube. Sam doesn't like it very much because it feels really weird to have air flow that he isn't in control of coming up into his mouth and leaking out around his trach tube. So we compromised by deflating is halfway. Tuesday he had the cuff deflated for 30 seconds. While the cuff was down Sam named the four seasons twice through and at the tail end of the time he was beginning to hear his voice! Wednesday he had the cuff deflated for a full minute and probably would have kept going if someone hadn't mentioned that the minute was up! During that session Sam read the names of the cards from a set of "Don't Bug Me" cards.
Sam had his last IV site removed on Tuesday. On Wednesday Occupational Therapy came and made him a splint for his right hand that will help keep his fingers from curling up. As soon as the splint the Orthopedic team put on his broken wrist comes off in another week he will get a similar splint made for that hand too.
Occupational and Physical Therapy come by every day to work on Sam's range of motion of all his extremities and get him up in a chair for a few hours. The muscle twitch/reflex movement in his limbs is almost constant now, to the point of being extremely uncomfortable, so we're discussing with the Rehab doctors how to make that a bit more comfortable for him. With the halo on, every time his muscles in his body twitch his neck also tenses and he can't move his neck to alleviate that strain.
Sam is scheduled to move to the Rehab unit on Monday as long as there is a room available. The doctors have told us that they'll try to get Sam a private room which is an exciting prospect for Sam as I've asked the staff and they've told me that we can probably have a sleepover with Thor and Trystan if he does get a private room! As soon as we know his new location we'll pass that information along.
Much love to all!