Saturday, October 31st, 4:45pm

Sorry for the gap in posts, it has been a busy few days.

For starters, Ken is doing well, but a lot has happened.

Yesterday, after during occupational therapy, they have him sit up in bed, change out of his hospital gown, wash himself with some washing cloths, and put on his clothes. These seem like simple tasks, I know, but with only one arm (and not your dominant one) it can be difficult. The move into a wheelchair, and do some more exercises. Then the therapist leaves him in the wheelchair for the next therapist the comes by.

That was from 8am to 9am. Scheduled after that was speech therapy from 9 to 10 and then physical therapy from 10 to 11. Kind of a lot all at once, but I told him at least we were getting it all out of the way in the morning, and would have the rest of the day to rest. He didn't sleep well at all the previous night. (First night in the new hospital, and the cough is really keeping him up)

So we are waiting for speech therapy to show up. And waiting, and waiting. 9:30 still no speech therapy. I start to ask around, but no one knows. Then at 9:45, they tell us that there was an emergency, and they were going to move Ken's speech therapy to 11am. Ken is exhausted from sitting the wheelchair for so long (he has been lying down for over three weeks now and sitting up was taking some energy). He said he wanted to move into the bed. I went and got a nurse, but they said that his physical therapy was starting at 10am (15 minutes) and they were going to want him in the chair anyway, so could we just wait it out. Ken says okay.

10 o'clock comes . . . 10:10 . . . . 10:15 . . . no physical therapy. Ken says, that's it, I'm getting in the bed. I call for the nurse again, and this time they get him into bed. He has a pounding headache, and is very tired. Physical therapy shows up at 10:30 and says they were reviewing his chart (which I can believe may have taken that long . . . his chart is huge). They start working with his legs and arms with range of motion and stuff like that. Then, they move him to the wheelchair and say they are going to go down the hall to practice standing up. About half way down the hall, Ken says he is very dizzy, and they take his blood pressure.

107/78

Because of Ken's condition, the doctors have him on SEVERAL medications to keep his systolic (top number) between 130 and 160 at all times. I have NEVER seen it lower than 138. The doctors are notified, and Ken is returned to his room.

Once there, we are visited by an ear, nose and throat doctor to address Ken's cough. FINALLY, someone sent for a specialist!! This doctor was very good, and said that he needed to put an endoscope down Ken's nose and into his throat to see the vocal cords and what-not. He sprayed some topical numbing solution in his nose, and went to work. I had to leave the room. The doctor says that he believes the cough is due to the large amount of congestion that Ken has, and he is prescribing a steroid nose spray to help with that and an Advair inhaler to help with the symptoms. Finally some good news. We all feel relaxed.

The nurse has come back in after talking to the doctor about his blood pressure, and the doctor has ordered a 3% saline IV to help boost his blood pressure. The nurse has never worked with the a port before. [Ken has a catheter going from the upper part of his left arm, through the skin, into a vein, and going all the way into his heart. It has a valve on the outside of the skin so that IV fluids can be easily administered without having to always put an IV in the arm each time. Kind of like a permenant IV line) So this nurse is struggling to get the port to open, and has to call for help. They get one of them open (he has 2) but the other one won't budge. They hook up the saline solution to the open port and turn on the machine that administers the fluid at the appropriate rate.

A few moments later, Ken grabs the left side of his face, and has a puzzled look. He says he just lost feeling on his left cheek (all other numbness has been on the right so far) Then he grabs his left temple and yelps in pain. We call a doctor immediately, and he orders another CT Scan. They believe he may be having another stroke. While we are waiting for transport to radiology, Ken begins to shiver. We get two more blankets. Still cold and shaking all over.

They take him down to radiology (good thing his rehab center is also a fully functional hospital - they have a CT Scanner and an MRI machine right on site)

The CT scan shows no new damage or strokes, and Ken already seems to be feeling better. The attribute this to the nerves from his surgery repairing themselves and sending false signals.

Ken was back in his room now, and was feeling a lot better.

I went home, and then returned that evening to follow up with him. He was still doing well, and was very tired.

Okay, so that was yesterday.

This morning, I got to the hospital around 10am, and Ken was already at occupational therapy. He got back around 11 and was in a pretty good mood, but was VERY tired again. Apparently, his roomate is a "travel-risk" meaning that although he can walk, he is not stable enough, and because he may hurt himself if he tries to get up, he has a "sitter" sit with him 24 hours a day. The problem is that Ken says they talked the entire night. Also, his roomate is practially deaf, so they were shouting at each other.

The nurse told me that since there was another patient two rooms over that also needed a "sitter" they would swap that patient and Ken so the two patients that need a "sitter" are in the same room. So at least that was good news.

His lunch was delivered, and I got him to eat some of the main dish, and then he said he wanted some of the salad. Instead of putting the food in his mouth, I started putting the food on the fork and then handing it to him. Then by the end, I was holding the salad bowl, and he was putting the food on the fork and eating by himself. This is a FIRST!!

Then he brushed his teeth by himself. He realy seemed much more on the ball today even though he was VERY tired.

After lunch he was resting a bit, and asked that his folks and me leave so he can get some rest. So we left today around 3pm or so. He seems really better today. I actually felt okay leaving him because the day had been going so well.

Now, I am at home, doing some laundry and getting ready for trick-or-treaters. I had not bought any candy yet, so I stopped by the CVS and got some candy and some sim ple decorations. It feels weird decorating the house by myself, but Kenny will be home soon.