A rainy day in Memphis

It's not cold today but looks like it should be, it's rainy and dreary out.

Louie was able to meet with the doctor this morning and here is the update -
Donna's physical therapy will be adjusted to accomodate her back pain. He (Louie) is not sure if the PT was aware of her back issues, or not. He didn't find out what happened yesterday that made her blood pressure plummet so far down. No further news from the dye tests done yesterday, the nurse had reported the preliminary results showed all clear for blood clots. There is still infection in her lungs, that is being treated with the antibiotics, nothing changed there. Donna did not rest well last night so she took a nap this morning. She is being given Tylenol for pain.

This morning she has already had her session with the the Occupational Therapist now. They are encouraging her to use her right hand more, which tends to be weaker than the left, and she is right handed. So they are focusing on small motor skills. For example - picking pennies/beans out of a lump of clay. She often finds it hard to follow directions so they must show her what to do. For example she can stick out her tongue, move it left to right, up and down, etc. But if you ask her to "point" to her nose, she doesn't understand what you want her to do.

If you were to have a conversation with Donna now you would notice some different things. Originally, once she found her voice she had trouble finding words. She would get stuck mid-sentence and struggle to finish the thought. Now, she talks plenty but some of the words come out in what sounds like "gibberish", they are similar to a scrambled word. and are injected in the sentence just as naturally as if they were pronounced properly. All the vowels and consonants may be there, but in a different order. Sometimes it's really hard to understand what she is saying. Her attitude is great though, she seems to understand that we don't understand so she tries again, from a different angle. It can take a long while to get through these conversations but we do. The other day she was talking about INSULIN (which they had been giving her for blood sugar control) but all we could understand was "N". Eventually we got it! Another time she was talking about a "Neurologist" and that was really tough, but again, we got it. It's sort of like playing Charades. Her intelligence shines through, the communication part is still challenging, for all of us. One minute she is brushing her hair with her toothbrush (she had just brushed her teeth with it getting ready for bed. The toothbrush was sitting next to her hairbrush and I guess she was just thinking "brush". ) and the next she is talking about what she had for dinner and how absolutely YUCKY the food was, as clear and concise as anyone would. To say that things are constantly changing for her, is an understatement ! Each day brings something new as she travels down the road to recovery.