At the Buffalo Sabres game January 30, 2007 - The night before his birthday. Good times were had by all :)

Hey what??

Good evening all!
I spent from about 3:30-8 with my dad and it is amazing how much he has progressed since I last saw him on Tuesday evening!
In terms of his agitation, it seems to come and go. He becomes fixated on touching his head and we have to keep telling him that he cannot touch it because it has to heal. When my mom and I were leaving, they were actually fitting him for a helmet that will (hopefully) prevent him from scratching and picking at his head, which could cause an infection and delay the healing process. So it seems that he has traded in his bike helmet for a protective healing helmet ;)
His breathing "goal" for the day was to breathe on his own for 12 hours straight. The nurses all told us his breathing was great and when we left at 8:00, he had been breathing on his own since 10AM so I am sure he met his goal.
The nurse also put a cover over the hole in his throat to enable him to talk. At first, his voice was very raspy and weak and his words were very scattered. Yet, as he got used to being able to talk, he correctly said my mom's name and my name when we asked him what our names were and even asked "where's Brian?" (Brian is in NYC for a music competition this weekend.) It was very exciting for us to hear him talk and correctly say our names. The highlite of the night was when his roommate was yelling either "Aide Aide! (calling for his nurse)" or "Hey Hey!" Either way, my dad thought he was saying "hey hey!" and out of the blue, my dad responded "hey what??" He definitely surprised us when he said that. My mom and I laughed for about a half an hour because it was so funny/encouraging. He also said random words throughout the time we were there, including "hospital" and "prices" when we were watching a news segment about the high gas prices. Finally, he kissed both my mom and I on the cheek when we asked him to and he even gave me a high five. What a guy! Definitely a great sign!
I am so proud of the progress he has made since the accident. He is so tough and I look forward to each day because I know he will make even more progress...
L

Get me outta here!

This morning's visit was the opposite of yesterday's. Gone is the ambivalence and serenity. Agitation and frustration seem to have swooped in and, with them, a tremendous amount of movement and awareness.

Oh yeah, Walt can move his arms and legs alright. As far as purposeful movements go, not only is he grabbing for his tubes (which one might mistake this for involuntary reaction to uncomfortable stimuli), but this morning he put his mits up to his mouth, bit into them, and pulled on them in a vallient, yet vain attempt to free himself from these harsh restraints. That, by any measure, is a purposeful movement (at least in my book).

Although he shook his head "no" when I asked him if he knew who I was, he did shake hands with me, upon request, when I left. And he actually raised his hand to meet mine, gripped hard and shook. No "dead fish" handshake here...

I hear that my brother and Tippy went to see Walt last night. They have him a good "talking-to". It appears that a followup conversation might be in order. Hey Brian, Tip, how about a comment hear on your visit last night, we'd love to hear from ya!

Medically, the nurse reported that Walt spent 8 hours off of the ventilator yesterday and they will continue to ween him off. His fever rose again last night, they cultured him (I didn't know he had so much culture?) and tweeked the antiobiotics.

That's all for now...please keep the comments coming!

A New Ward for Walt

Walt was moved out of ICU and into the Respiratory Care ward late yesterday. The objective now, as I understand it from the nurses on the Respiratory Care ward, is to ween him off the ventilator. This morning, the nurse told me that he had been off the vent for about 2 hours yesterday. However, she was just meeting him for the first time this morning and was pretty unfamiliar with anything else...other than his meds etc.

"The Patient" seemed totally ambivalent about his new confines - or anything else for that matter - this morning. So he and I sat there, he in bed and myself in a chair, watching an electronic clock which was displayed on the TV and listening to the classical music they have piped into his room. Walt was quite fixated on the clock for several minutes, then seemed to get bored with the whole thing and dropped off to sleep.

I tried to impress upon him the importance being on top of his game for tomorrows St. Mary's evaluation, but again, ambivalence was the theme for this morning so I just left. Just like 40 years ago when he brought Patty to his house only to find his pain-in-the-ass little cousins there wanting him to play. Kinda the same reaction - if he ingored us long enough, we'd just go away :)

Alright, enough already with the trip down memory lane.

Until tomorrow....

Hi again, this morning was good. I only intended to stay for 15 minutes but they decided to remove the ventilator and just give him some oxygen.

And it worked! So I decided to stick around a little.

Walt was breathing totally on his own, starting at 9:20am and he was still breathing on his own when I left 45 minutes later! The nurse (Marie, for those of you who are keeping track) was shouting words of encouragement as he coughed - "Good cough Walter, keep it up!". Not typical for Marie, at least not in my limited exposure to her.

Also: The "mits" they had on his hands are off. No tubes in his wrists or arms either (they moved them to his legs). Gone too are the restraints. Now he is free to scratch his nose and chin and rub his eyes; a freedom of which he is taking advantage with reckelss abandon (i.e. he scratches alot). So overall, he seems alot more comfortable. He shook my hand, albeit with a little prodding from me but he did the shaking motion - ya know, the up and down stuff, not just the grip.

And right before I left, they sat him up in a chair, with ESPN on the TV in front of him.

Ya know, I still look up to him.

I saw Walt this morning...he's off the neck brace and awake, as they have reduced the sedation down to nothing!

He moved around alot, eyes open alot. The nurse (Jennifer) looked at the log, and said that he's been "intermittently following commands". And his breathing is pretty much on his own with only "pressure support" from the ventilator.

He has been moved to a corner suite...has a roomate who came in last night but was in surgery this morning.

Funny story: The Homer Simpson bottle opener started making noise all on its own, kinda weird! At first we didn't know what was going on, Jennifer got pretty spooked but settled down when I explained to her what had happened. No, there's no remote control for the Homer Bottle opener....

Hope everyone is well, that's my post for the day...please send comments.!

Introduction - March 26

The purpose of this blog is to keep somewhat regular updates on Walt's progress as he goes through the recovery cycle. I am starting this as a simple means to keep everybody up to date, and a way to keep in touch with all of you fine folks whom I've seen at the hospital lately. It's been great meeting, and re-meeting, you all.

Please understand that the update you're getting hear is not necessarily medically correct; it's based on our discussions with doctors and nurses, and my own observations and those of others where noted.

Overall, they reduced the amount of sedative so Walt is a bit more fidgety now. He opens his eyes and sometimtes makes what the nurses call "purposeful" movements. Lindsay reported that Walt gave a "thumbs up" for the doctor over the weeked, and stuck out his tongue. These responses were delayed and the speculation here has something to do with ephasia and you can look that up on Google. But anyway, progress!

MRI results should be read today and hopefully his collar can come off as a result.

Stay tuned and please post your comments...