Date sent: 10/07/99 11:04 PM
Subject: What's next????
Dear Gang,
I know that everyone is waiting to hear what our plans for returning home are. Dan and
I talked quite a bit today. And, as scarey as it may seem, we still don't know yet what we
are going to do. We are going tomorrow morning to see Dr. Black. We will hear what he has
to say and then make some choices.
The Patient Care Team at Spaulding strongly recommends continued in patient care. They
think that he might need 3 to 4 more weeks. I think that we have accepted that now. The
next decision will be whether to do that here or in Dayton (at Miami Valley for example)
or some combination of those. We are gathering information right now about what all the
options are in our area and how to make that kind of transfer.
So, there was big news today. Dan was able to dress himself, can transfer from bed to
wheel chair and back...
In PT he tried a tool called an Atlas walker. That is shaped like a "walker"
but is much taller, and has padding around the top portion of the frame.. The idea is for
him to rest his elbows and arms on the frame, and lean into it to walk. That by itself was
not very helpful. However, with two people helping him, he could take a couple of steps.
His sneakers were getting stuck on the linoleum, so they had him put on slipper-socks.
Then, he was able to bring his left leg through. Then, she gave him a brace for his left
foot to help, and then he was able to walk almost the whole hallway...with two people
helping him. So, overall it was a great session.
In the speech session, he did cognative testing. The first two tests went well, but
then he had some problems. It was another day of lack of sleep, so, he was stressed out by
that. So, tomorrow they will meet earlier if that is possible.
He slept in the evening.
That's about it. Tomorrow will be the "big day".
Love, Abi and Dan
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