End of Day Post

Boy, do I feel like I've been on an emotional rollercoaster today. As you know, I had a pretty tough morning. More than anything, I think the lack of sleep is catching up to me. I have some significant meetings (not that any of my meetings are insignificant--I just mean that they would be difficult to reschedule) at work for the next two days, but I'm toying with the idea of using a vacation day for Friday so I can get some rest. This working after the kids go to bed thing is pretty difficult right now because I am so sleep deprived. I think once I get caught up a little it will be more manageable.

J.J. had four and a half hours of therapy today. These included a physical therapy assessment, an occupational therapy assessment, a speech therapy session, a physical therapy session and an optical therapy assessment. J.J.'s vision prescription has changed a little since his stroke. Due to his blindness (J.J. was born without a retina in his right eye and is blind on this side), his depth perception was an adaptation. The change in his vision has thrown his depth perception out of whack. The result is that he keeps running into things on his right because he misjudges how much room there is. Optical therapy should help with this.

Let's see--as far as physical therapy, J.J. is doing very well. He's using a wheelchair at the moment until the doctor signs off on his PT assessment, which recommends a cane for balance only. J.J. is really irritated by this chair; granted, it is rather irritating. It looks like a throne. J.J. weighs 20 lbs. over the cut off weight for the standard adult wheelchairs, and this one looks to be made for someone about twice his size. It's ridiculous. We should be bidding it adieu very shortly. His right hand has regained a lot of the gross motor function--he's able to eat with his right hand again--but still has a little bit of fine motor control to work out. I brought my laptop in for him today and he gave up on it quickly since he can't type accurately yet.

I missed the OT assessment so I can't really speak to that one. Hopefully I can catch that one tomorrow. Speech therapy was interesting--J.J.'s speech is really coming a long way but remains his number one issue. It wasn't surprising to learn that J.J.'s speech is better if he is reading a passage aloud or if he has a picture to refer to, since he's such a bookworm. His concentration is getting better as well. A lot of the automatic speech is coming back (i.e., counting, days of the week, his full name, etc.). He still hasn't said my name or the kids' names, but we set that as a goal with the therapist and J.J. will be working toward that in the next day or two. He will receive 1-2 hours of speech therapy each day, seven days per week, for the foreseeable future.

Although I am thrilled that J.J.'s speech is improving, I am not thrilled that as soon as we got back to his room this afternoon on a break between therapy sessions he started pleading with me to take him home. His argument is that the speech therapy can be done outpatient and he will be more comfortable and thus more focused if he is at home with us. My argument is that RHI is among the most well-respected rehabilitation facilities in the Midwest and that there are people who have been on their waiting list for years. J.J. was lucky that they happened to have a bed open for him at this time. Additionally, the three week period following a stroke is the time of most rapid recovery; I think by remaining inpatient during this time, he will maximize the extent of his recovery. I won, of course, but I felt really terrible telling him I wouldn't bring him home. I don't think he'll be there long anyway--at this point Anthem is only certing him for five days at a time, so I anticipate we're probably looking at somewhere between 10-20 days.

The rest of my day has been okay, if tiring. Leah has been a gigantic pill the last couple of days. I think her acting out is correlated with her dad's hospitalization. But she'd going to need to lay off, or Mommy will be eating Xanax for dinner each evening.

The first physical sign of my stress/malnutrition (except the white hair, which was pretty long so I think it dates back some time) has shown up. My fingernails are breaking at an alarming rate. I'm cutting them all off now, which bothers me since I've always had long nails and am rather vain about my hands, but oh well. One less thing to have to deal with right now.

Okay, time to get back for my last two INHP hours of the day. More tomorrow.