At the end of the first week of outpatient therapies we thought some specific updates could be useful. Overall, TJ tires quickly and still describes himself as weak, but slowly and steadily gaining strength. His physical therapist said she won't be seeing him for long and gave him a list of exercises to be doing at home.
Occupational therapy noted that his right arm is only about 1/3 as strong as his left-most likely due to the neck injury (C5-6 herniation) that he suffered about 3 weeks before getting sick. He cannot lift a 1/2 gallon of milk with his right hand and his neck is often sore. The OT also gave him home exercises. He thinks it will take a couple of hours a day to do all the things they gave him to do. No complaining- just the way it needs to be to make progress. He is also having noticeable "discomfort" in his right arm where the clot is located and will be on blood thinners for a long time.
TJ is seeing two speech therapists. One has a goal of working on short term memory, which is steadily improving but testing showed some deficits. The other is a vocal specialist. TJ is quite hoarse and she thinks there may be some paralysis of one side of his voice box. We thought they were going to use a scope to visualize the vocal chords yesterday, but that has been scheduled for February 5th. She also gave him some activities to do to increase breath capacity- the inspiration phase of breathing is still rather short.
TJ's internist/endocrinologist (he is both) has put him on a rigorous regime to keep his blood sugars in tight control. He checks his blood sugar by finger stick at least 4 times a day before meals and at bedtime. He has a correction scale of short acting insulin based on the immediate blood sugar. We also have to figure out the grams of carbohydrates he eats at each meal and then he adds more of the short acting insulin for the amount of carbs he has eaten. He also takes a long acting insulin twice a day. (Hurray for tiny needles!) There are many, many people who do this everyday, but we are still getting the hang of it. For me the adjustment is more detailed meal planning so we can figure out the carbs. Since I like to cook "ad lib" I have to pay more attention to what I am adding to a meal as well as paying attention to the total number of carbs. Time for a Sam's club tomorrow to load up on colorful low carb food.
For the many of you who are encouraging TJ to take the time he needs to recover, his work schedule has been cleared through March. He is meeting with some of his team either in person (so far at home) or by phone, and working on his laptop. He has no international travel scheduled until May. Between several hours of therapy per week, lab appointments, and doctor appointments life stays pretty busy! We really appreciate all the encouraging comments and continued prayer-they add octane to the fuel to keep us going!
Steven is now an official card carrying "woofer" or wilderness first responder. He successfully completed all the testing for the class yesterday and has a full week off before the new semester starts on February 4th.
Jon is still pushing hard on his racial reconciliation J term class. I can't believe the number of papers he has to do to meet the class requirements. He has always had a strong sense of justice so there is a big emotional investment for him in this class. His class ends of Tuesday and he has at least two papers to complete by then.
Our specific prayer requests would be :
~Healing of his neck injury
~Resolution of the clot
~Full recovery of his voice
~Strength and patience for the rehab process
~Sleep- TJ has not been sleeping well at night- not a big surprise given the discomfort he has and this whole experience.
With our deepest gratitude,
Mary Ann
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