James is working on increasing his stamina on the treadmill and the stationary bike. He is now doing 15 minutes on the bike, and 12 minutes on the treadmill. It was tough staying focused when he was on the bike today though. There were a couple of patients that we have only ever seen in their wheelchairs who were up walking today, and James kept losing focus because he was watching them, must admit I was too! I am praying for the day that it is him walking unassisted! Next week James will start having an extra hour of physio with a rehab assistant everyday. His occupational therapist will also be back from holidays and he will be taking on a more physical piece too. He will be working on James' right arm and some more pieces around movement and balance.
I asked the doctor about the use of the gym, and she said that she just doesn't want him going to the gym alone, so she is totally fine with me taking him. We have started Going back to the gym again, but James has decided that the he doesn't like some of the equipment that he is assigned to. He will still use the arm bike, so we are still going and using that. I think that the physiotherapist is going to show us the stationary bikes tomorrow. James really enjoys the stationary bike, so that should work out well. The doctor gave James some more Botox injections in his right arm, and also his right shoulder . We are seeing some significant changes after just a week. The new meds seem to be helping too. He is moving a bit quicker, and his tremor has settled a bit. It is hard to know if the tremor is settling because of the meds or the Botox though. It may be a bit of both!
The wheelchair company came and moved the wheels on James chair forward last week. It is definitely easier for him to propel and me to push!
James started to make a T shirt in the craft room this week. I discovered that I need to leave when he works on the shirt, because if I am there he just tries to get me to do it! They are open Monday to Thursday afternoons, so he will just go for a short time each day and work on it.
James has been going to wheelchair sports once a week too. He likes the arm propelled sports chair. They are fun and they turn on a dime! He isn't too interested in the sports end of it though. They were playing netball and he found it a bit overwhelming. They crash the chairs into each other and are very competitive. We will probably just go and play around with the sports chair in the hallway next week. He is also still not great at catching a ball. He can do a good bounce and throw though.
At occupational therapy he has been working around the kitchen. He just is still a little shakey when standing to reach things in the kitchen, and is very easily distracted. He made mashed potatoes himself yesterday, and enjoyed them for dinner! I took him the full hour to make them, but he did it with very little prompting. Today they started a new nighttime splint for his right hand. It will need a bit of tweaking tomorrow, but hopefully we can start using it more this weekend.
James had a very thorough hearing assessment done last week. He does have moderate hearing loss of higher frequency sounds in his right ear. It looks like everything is structurally sound, so she figured that it was due to nerve damage. He may have another appointment with the ear, nose and throat doctor, but we haven't heard back about that yet.
James was approved for a handy dart visitors pass, so that will make it possible for us to get out.
Tonight we are meeting with a volunteer at the music studio over at the hospital.
The family is coming to visit this weekend, so we are super excited about that. Gramma, Aunty Jane and Uncle Les are coming to visit on Sunday too! We will have a busy long weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment