Merry Christmas!

James came home for five days over Christmas.  He is sure happy to be home.  The day that we were leaving to go over and visit with James and bring him home to visit,  we had an amazing hamper delivered!  What a surprise!  Everything for Christmas dinner plus other food items,  plus gifts and stockings for us all! Our tree has never been so full!  It was the first Christmas since I was a kid that I didn't know what was under the tree!  We brought James' girlfriend with us to Vancouver and she also spent Christmas Day with us.  James was so excited to see her!  The hotel that we stayed in while we visited with James had an IHOP restaurant attached to it.  The food was fabulous!  I think I have a new favorite restaurant!  Too bad we don't have one near home.  We visited with Grampa Cam and Cindy and Paige while in Vancouver.  We had lunch and dinner with them, went to a movie and visited at their home.  It was a great day.  We saw the movie, Frozen.  It was great.  James saw it once already,  but he was super excited to see it with the family!  We travelled home on Christmas Eve with James.  We saw a pod of small dark colored whales on the ferry trip.  We stopped in Nanaimo and had dinner and a visit with gramma Ann,  then drove home.  We spent Christmas Day with James girlfriend, Rae Ann, and Nana came for dinner.  We also went over the Nana's house to see her mini Christmas village that she puts up every year.  We ended the day by driving along candy cane lane to see all the Christmas lights!   James also spent almost the whole day without his chair!  He was 11 hours out of his chair!  He even used his walker to go In and out of Nana's house.  That was quite a bit of walking! We all got super spoiled for Christmas!  We are so blessed to have such awesome friends and family!  

James got a new roommate on Christmas Eve at the hospital.  He is a man in about his 50s.  I hope he is as nice as the last roommate.  I am a little nervous about it.  The experience with the first roommate James had was so horrible!  James' usual doctor is back from hollidays and I look forward to meeting with her next week.  James has been trialling a power chair lately.  He has practiced with it 3 or 4 times now.  He is doing very well with it.  He is very careful,  and I suspect it won't be long before he is able to use it on his own inside the building.  He really enjoys the independence it gives him.  I have been very concerned that he hasn't been using his walker much while he has been there.  It sounds like both his physiotherapist and his occupational therapist will be spending time walking with him with his walker now though.  James had a scope of his throat done again recientely.  They were wanting to see how his naso-pharyngeal port ( a flap that opens and closes between the mouth and nose). Is working and how he is handling eating and drinking.  The port did close nicely a couple of times while he was making an "A" sound,  but it wasn't consistent. I am hoping that it is a sign that it is starting to work.  That port being able to open and close when he speaks is very important to the intelligablility of his speech.  He was able to also swallow a teaspoon of regular fluid as well as he swallows a teaspoon of thickened fluid.  So that is also promising.  He is still a choking risk though,  and still needs to be monitored when eating.

James and I will be going back over to Vancouver on Sunday.  I will stay there until the following Sunday.  It will give me a chance to catch up with his therapists  and his doctor. 

Calmer waters

James has been doing much better the last couple of weeks.  I still think that hie schedule should be busier though.  He does have a couple of new things added to his week.  He has hand class on Tuesday morning and on Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoons he has a speech volunteer working with him.  James usual doctor is back this week too.  I will meet with her after Christmas.  She is familiar with James and his goals,  and I am hoping that she can kick James rehab up a notch!  

James iPad will be replaced this week too!  He will be getting a new speech app on it to try out as well as his old touch chat app.  His replacement iPad is a mini and he is pretty excited about that.  It will be easier to pack around and keep safe!  The occupational therapist is making a pouch for it to go in that will attach to his chair.  

James will be getting another throat scope done tomorrow.  They are going to watch what happens when he eats, as well as when he talks.  His speech therapist wants to also discuss with the doctor if there are any intervention options to help with his speech.  

James now has a the social worker for his program checking in with him almost daily too.  Just to make sure that he is doing okay and that no one is giving him a rough time.  James is becoming more known by other patients and nurses though.  There are quite a few patients who talk to James now and keep an eye out for him!  

James is very excited about coming home for 5 days around Christmas!  His girlfriend has taken time off around that time too, so he is super excited to spend some time with her too! 

Tough few weeks

It has been a tough start for James at gf Stronge.   During the first week,  he got a roommate who was very verbally abusive and intimidating to James.  The roommate then stole James iPad with his communication program on it.  The iPad was retrieved from under the roommates mattress, and a couple of days later they moved James to a new room (across the hall) because James was refusing to go in the room and was sitting in the hallway.  the day after the move his iPad went missing again,  and this time they found the charger in the old roommates drawer,  but were not able to find the iPad.  So poor James has been the last few weeks without his communication program.  I am noticing that he is often just giving up trying to communicate more complex ideas to the nurses.  If it takes too much effort to get his point across he will just give up.  James' new roommate is a sweetheart though.  He is in his 40s and is from Columbia.  He speaks Spanish and now James wants to learn Spanish!  His new roommate was telling me that he is discharging in  by couple of weeks though.  I am nervous about who will be rooming with James next!  

I spent last weekends visit meeting with police about the iPad,  and generally trying to get a clearer picture of the story of the iPad theft.  The hospital won't consider it stolen though,  only missing.  Security says that since no one actually saw the guy steal the iPad it is deflamitory to say it was stolen. He says that even though it was found the first time under the guys mattress,  that doesn't mean he put it there.  The argument would be, what if the guy was framed.  Good grief !  Not sure what the police have been able to do,  and if I wanted a copy of the police report I would have to apply for freedom of information act,  which is a lengthy and expensive process.  It does look like the company that supplied the iPad will replace it for him,  but there are lots of hoops to jump through to make that happen.  I spent this weekend working on paperwork to get the iPad replaced.  I am hoping to have it replaced before Christmas.  

There was a meeting on Thursday to discuss James progress so far.  I caught wind earlier in the week that the talk was to discharge James because James was wanting to go home.  I talked to James' physiotherapist from Courtenay, who wrote an awesome e mail to the new physiotherapist as well as the physio and occupational therapists who worked with James during the summer.  Well,  I think he sufficiently stirred the pot!  When I arrived they were all hopping,  and the doctor filling in for James' usual doctor had given James his cell number, and was communicating with him via texting!  He convinced James to give it a good try and stick around.  A review meeting is now set for January 20th.  At that meeting either a discharge date will be discussed or another review meeting set.  Basically what we heard is that James is working hard and cooperating despite being homesick.  He is using his right hand a lot more,  and I have seen a significant change in the function of his right hand.  His speech is coming along,  he is quite a bit clearer if he plugs his nose.  He is scheduled to have another scope done on the 17 th of this month.  He is also sitting a bit straighter in the last week or so too.  I told them that James needs to be busier too.  When he is bored,  he gets very homesick.

I took James to a follow appointment with the Neuro Opthomologist yesterday.  He saw some positive changes in James eye function in just under 2 months since he saw him last.  He said that on their own each of James' eyes works quite well,  they just don't work perfectly together.  He wants to follow up with more testing in 6 months.  He felt that patching one eye or the other might assist James in some activities where there is still some double vision.  He also suggested tinting the lense of his glasses on his right eye.  That eye is light sensitive since the pupil stays a bit more dialated than the other.  He does not feel that James is a good candidate for surgery since his right eye has multiple issues.  

Gf Stronge

James has been at gf Stronge for almost two weeks now.  It has been a tough couple of weeks though.  On day 5 he got a roommate.  His roommate was walking and talking, and very nasty to James.  When James came into the room he would swear at him and started calling him names.  He also stole James iPad with his communication program on it.  They found it under the roommates mattress .  It got to the point where James wouldn't go in the room while the roommate was there.  He would just sit in the hallway.  They moved James to a new room last Thursday.  His new roommate seems to be a really sweet guy.  He is in a wheelchair too,  and he also has some communication issues.  He is able to speak better than James can though,  and often let's the nurses know what James is trying to say!  James iPad went missing again after they moved him though.  The charging cord was discovered in the old roommates possession,  but they haven't been able to find the iPad.  So poor James is trying to get along without it for now.  The society that provided the iPad has said that they will provide James with another iPad,  as long as the hospital staff can figure out ways to increase the security around the iPad.  James has been having a hard time with the fact that they won't let him go to bathroom on his own either.  He has to call a nurse to go to the bathroom.  While his transfers are supposed to be just supervised,  when he gets a new nurse,  they seem to feel the need to actually transfer him themselves,  which is very frustrating  to James because it is difficult to communicate with them.  I did get an email today from his OT that she is going to let him get in and out of bed unsupervised though.  She still wants to work on the bathroom transfers. 

I also got a call from a fella who works on the recreational therapy team last night.  He is going to start taking James out a couple of days a week !  Today they are going to go and get chocolate cake at white spot.  They are also planning on going to the movies on another day.  

James has an appointment with the Neuro Opthomologist next Friday, and I am going to go over early to Vancouver, so I can go with him.  It is to go over the results of some field of vision tests that they did almost two weeks ago. 

Back at GF Stronge!

James went back to GF Stronge last Thursday!  It was hard leaving him there to come home. I am sure he will do fine,  but it is hard not to worry about him!  He got his schedule yesterday.  I am glad that it looks like they will keep him busy!  He has Occupational therapy at 9 am,  Physio at 10 am,  and two half hour speech sessions at 11 am and 2 pm.  They are also talking about putting him in pool therapy twice a week and one session a day with a rehab assistant to work on his walking. As well as getting him involved in music therapy and art therapy.  He will be going to the recreational pool session on Wednesday nights too.  There is also wii games nights on Mondays and Thursdays.  Monday night games night is on the spinal injury floor,  and I understand that there are a couple of young guys there. I will be going back over to visit James on the weekend.  I will probably go over on Friday night,  and come home again on Sunday night.  

Here we go again!

We got the phone call from GF Stronge about James going back for more therapy!  He checks in to the hospital next Thursday!  He will be an inpatient for the next few months.  My plan is to go over and visit with him on the weekends.  James is actually quite excited about going back,  and says that he is looking foreword to hospital food!  Lol!  He will be working with a new set of therapists,  so I am looking foreword to meeting them all on Thursdays and Friday next week.  It has been a busy week, with trying to get organized to go back to Vancouver.  I will blog more after we get to Vancouver !

October 2013

We took James over to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago for a Neuro Opthomologist  appointment.  He has to have some more tests on November 15 th to figure out exactly how much double vision he has,  and how well his eyes are working together.  I am amazed at how well he actually has adapted to his vision changes and is able to tune out one of the images when he starts to see double.  The doctor said that surgery is possible to correct the double vision,  but since he is still healing there is no rush on making that decision.  The longer we wait the better.  He also feels that the damage to the nerves around James' eye are due to trauma to the eye and not due to the brain injury.  James did great during the assessment and used his voice quite a bit to communicate with the doctor.  

While we were in Vancouver we also stopped in to see the coordinator at GF Stronge.  I was hoping to get an actual date for when James goes back as an inpatient.  She said that she should know better after November 5 th.  They will have a meeting to discuss bed availability on that date.  She did say that it would likely be the week after rememberance day.   When he does get a bed,  I will go over on The  weekends,  but I won't stay over there during the week.  

James is doing well at his day program.  His worker is great,  and they seem to get along well.  He is excited about wearing his costume to his program tomorrow.  He loves Halloween and is looking foreword to handing out candy tomorrow night.  

James is doing better at walking all the time.  He definitely is still making good progress.  Slow and steady!  I can feel quite a difference in his balance when I walk with him.  He is walking laps with his walker around the hallways of the day program building everyday.  He walked around 2 and a half laps yesterday!  We did have to bribe him with root beer to increase his number of laps though!