Friday Update

Friday, June 6

When we arrived at the hospital this morning, Mom had her eyes open and was whisper-talking with the speech therapist who had come to check on her swallowing again. She did so well with the ice chips, water and applesauce that she is now cleared to receive nourishment orally (in a pureed form, through a straw, as long as she is alert at the time). The speech therapist says the breakfast choices on this particular menu are really good. Her favorites are the cinnamon roll and the pancakes. (Doesn’t that sound great – pureed cinnamon roll?!) We hope she will be able to begin this new process tomorrow morning.

Dr. Kachmann (the neurosurgeon) came to visit this morning as well. He indicated that he is very pleased with her progress and explained more about her surgical procedure. We were encouraged by his optimism regarding her recovery.

Good news – she has moved out of ICU into a room in the neurological surgical unit. Her room number is now 359. This means that she no longer has to be monitored as closely as she was in ICU. She also should be able to get more rest, because the nurses will disturb her less frequently.

The most exciting news of the day is that Mom has shown some movement on her left side. Up until now we have seen very little – especially on command. However, today she was able to turn her wrist and show slight movement in her fingers as we were going through the recommended exercises with her left arm. We are to complete each exercise in sets of 10. We are trying to count aloud, but sometimes we seem to miscount, because she immediately corrects us.

While she is still very tired and rarely has her eyes open, Mom has been asking quite a few questions today in a weak, but deliberate, whisper. For example: 1) she has been curious about the presidential democratic nomination (she specifically wanted to know what happened in Florida); 2) she asked about her grandson’s (Parker) job interview; 3) she wanted to make sure the crafts group at Highland Avenue is set to “go” without her; and 4) when she heard Fazoli’s was serving food at the hospital today, she said, “I like Fazoli’s,” but then she said she thought it didn’t sound good as a meal through a straw.

We are now sitting in her room watching the severe thunderstorms run through the area. We hope they pass us (and you) by without any damage.