One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

Friday was a successful mission in which I have come up with the name: operation surprise for obvious reason. Only a select few were privileged enough to know that I was going to make a surprise visit to the hospital this weekend. No one from Arkansas was aware because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise and now that I’m old enough to rent a car on my own, I figured I should take advantage of my old age and keep it secret by renting a car and driving on my own. I had the weekend off of work, and hearing about dads recent successes, I had the opportunity to come and spend some time with him and wanted to take full advantage of it. Chris and Courtney both thought that my aunt was coming down to help and much to their surprise, it was me! I made it to the hospital around 9:30 at night, and I walk to the unit where Chris was “working” first. As I walk up to the nurses’ station, she looks up with a confused look as if she was thinking, “ look at that strapping young lad, he looks just like Scott (I know it’d be a lucky kid if there were two of us).” The closer she looked and the more she began to process it, she realized it was me, she then blurts out an “o my word, what are you doing here?” Still in shock, we go up stairs to Dads room where Courtney was sitting and dad was sleeping. Courtney looked just as confused, and probably a little irritated that she wasn’t aware I was coming (she thinks she’s knows everything and is nosey of course, but what older sister isn’t?) As I’m talking to her, Dad wakes up (I’m assuming it was my angelic voice) and as he sees me, he starts grinning. I’m not sure if he knew I haven’t been there for awhile, or just sensed the excitement in the room, but he seemed pretty happy I was there, but quickly feel back asleep.

I was trying to think of what I was going to say when I walked in the room for the past couple days. I wish I had a cape so that I could open the door and jump in as if I was superman, but I went with the less drastic option and threw open the door and asked where the bathroom was in this joint. I think it was a successful surprise and definitely put a smile on some faces and most importantly dads. I’ve been warning dad that he needs to get some sleep tonight because boot camp starts tomorrow at 0900 (o nine hundred) and that he’s not going to be able to sleep during the day because he wouldn’t let me sleep at night. I told him we’re going to do jumping jacks, somersaults, handstands, push ups and cart wheels. If he begins to sleep, I’m going to buy a fly swatter and hit him, shake the bed, or make loud annoying noises (to bad I don’t have a recording of quincy talking).

My first thoughts of dad through the night were that overall he looks pretty good. He still has a lot of involuntary/uncontrolled movements which is typically called ataxia or ataxic movements. This can be caused because he was out of it for so long and his brain didn’t really have to think about his movements and coordinating them properly. He is going has to relearn how to move in a smooth pattern. It’s not uncommon to have, but he seems to have a pretty good case of it. He’s definitely talking more and most of the talking is simple responses and repetitive. I’m trying to get him to use his voice more than just little whispers so we can hear him and understand him. He’s forming his own language and he refers to it as “thai.” He has random words he says all the time some of the being pottayyy (which means potty) and ta ta. He tends to say pottayy a lot even when he doesn’t have to go and I’ve reminded him of the boy who cried wolf, because that is all I have heard the entire night was. I also had to tell him what ta ta was and that we aren’t going to talk about that when I’m here.

The therapist came in today and I can say without a doubt I’m fairly disappointed. First of all if you’ve been following at all you know that it irritates me when people do not introduce themselves or explain what they’re going to be doing. I don’t care if you explain it to me, but explain it to the patient. The transfers were just not that good and they lifted improperly because it was “Easier.” He stood up and transferred to the toilet and was able to sit with pretty good balance for awhile, but he fatigued fairly quickly. The therapist was trying to get him to lift his arms up (which he’s been having issues with because he’s so weak). I’m trying to get him to focus on picking his head up but it’s a lot harder than you think. He hasn’t had to hold it up for quite a while and now that he needs to his muscles are really weak.

In the experience I’ve had, you need to focus on the easiest stuff first such as sitting edge of bed, keeping your head up, and safe transfers before you begin to walk appropriately. Although that stuff is still hard and very tiring, I feel that most therapist focus on quantity rather than quality. A lot of people will think that since you’re walking 60 feet you’re doing great when in actuality you should only be walking 10 feet at a time and focus on doing that correct before you go any farther. It’s my fear that there are focusing more on the quantity of it, because they aren’t a true rehab hospital they just aren’t familiar with what to do first.

I can also say that I’ve been disappointed with the nursing staff overall on this unit. Some of them have been very friendly but they don’t seem to be doing much at all. It could be the fact that I’m in the room all the time, but it’s be nice to actually see someone around the start of their shift and not 3 hours into it. I miss most of the ICU nurses I’m familiar with and the care that they were giving. The nurses on this unit don’t know how to work the bed, and aren’t comfortable with helping transferring to the toilet. I’m just ready to get him to a nice rehab facility so we can really focus on the things that we need to.

We worked a little bit more on therapy before I left on Sunday. A retired physical therapist in the family has been gracious enough to spend his time and come and help with dad and his progress. We worked a lot on trying to normalize the movements to decrease the ataxic movement and we also worked on strengthening overall, especially the muscles that help him stand. He’s weak and needs a lot of work and therapy needs to focus on transferring and overall strengthening.

It was a pretty boring flight both there and on the way back. I think I slept most of the time and there really weren’t any interesting stories. I did stop by the ICU waiting room and it looks different. I think I’m just not use to my stuff not being cluttered everywhere around my bed. in there. Since my return dad has moved to little rock and is now at a neuro rehab facility. From what I’ve heard about it so far it seems to be a pretty nice place. I’m excited to journey back down and check it out to see his progress.