I saw mom early this morning and began her day. She combed her own hair while I did her physical therapy. She also helped me do her physical therapy---she opened and closed the fingers on her right hand and left hand (albeit slowly). Mom wiggled her toes on her right foot during physical therapy too. She was also able to move her right arm 2 times during therapy. I asked mom to think about her ankle as I touched it, and then I asked her to move it the way we do in therapy---I did it for her once, then I asked her to do it. And she did so twice!!!!!
After the CNAs dressed her, I did the pegs and pegboard with mom. She put 4 pegs into the board alone and removed6 alone. I did hand over hand prompting to put 6 more in and take them out. She was able to follow the command to put 5 in the box and we did hand over hand for the rest.
Next, we did clothespins on the rim of the cup. Mom was able to squeeze and place 8 of the 12 clothespins on the rim of the cup alone!! The other 4 needed hand over hand prompting. During the placement of the 8, I continually talked to her and told her what to do or modeled it with another clothespin. She was able to take 5 of the 12 off the rim of the cup and place them into the cup again---without prompting and independently. Sometimes, it appears that either mom’s attention wanes and she forgets what she is doing and supposed to do, while other times it appears that she gets bored with the task and variates it to her liking. But, in any event, it is hard to determine which of these options are operating at any given time.
Mom took a brief nap after this. When she woke up, we did some mega blocks (these are huge toddler-sized legos). She resisted me at first, but after explaining to her again that everything we do with her is in an effort for her to get better, she cooperated. She put together16 blocks independently. Then she rearranged them and put some together over and over again. As mom worked on these blocks, one of the people from the physical/occupational therapy department came in to tell me that he had spent “some time” with mom on Wednesday or Thursday because the doctor of the facility felt that mom needed to receive therapies again. This male therapist told me that he didn’t see any consistency or improvement in mom’s progress. I decided to play the role of dumb brunette rather than doctor of literacy or special education teacher. I asked what the requirement was to receive therapy. I asked if, in order to receive therapy, mom had to be able to accomplish tasks and follow commands on her own. He said of course not. I then asked why mom didn’t receive therapy any more??? I asked him after he spewed forth more of his nonsensical B.S. whether he could really look me in the eye and tell me that mom shows no improvement from the time she arrived at the facility to now.
The tragedy that exists is that people who end up in a skilled nursing facility are left there to basically rot and, hopefully (in the opinion of the health care system of today) die. No one cares. The respiratory therapists, who come into the room to suction mom’s trach, suction her as though they are unclogging a stopped up toilet. They don’t even announce their presence when she is asleep and oftentimes just come in and roughly suction her, much to her sleeping surprise. She is jolted awake by the intrusive manner in which some respiratory therapist suctioned her. This morning, as I stood by mom’s bedside talking to her and doing her physical therapy, some respiratory therapist came into the room and began to suction her---without so much as a hello, or God forbid, an explanation of what she was about to do.
When Anthony arrived, I filled him in on the happenings of the morning and he and I went down to the therapy office to get to the bottom of the “no more therapy” issue. Anthony took charge of the situation and helped me express our viewpoints. They kept talking about how the brain has to rewire itself in order to make actions happen. Anthony asked how that can happen without help. He asked if she was just going to wake up one day and magically function all on her own. I jumped in at that point and pointed out that the neuroplasticity of the brain needs a bombardment of stimulation and movement in order to open new pathways and that we needed to be giving mom a bombardment of therapy NOW. They insisted that she has not made consistent progress and never answered Anthony’s question about how to get better with no therapy. Bottom line…after passionately and a bit angrily speaking to 2 of the physical therapists and the head nurse, we got mom’s physical and occupational therapies back for 2-3 weeks. The physical therapist is going to work on helping mom to be able to sit unsupported and also move her legs more than she does now.
We were making mom laugh soooo hard!! We gave her the nerf gun and we had a target practice. We told her to watch where she was shooting. Anthony said, “Oh sure, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt!” and she laughed so hard!!! Anthony bent over and said, “Here’s a big target” and mom laughed hard again. She laughed so hard with the gun that she began to make her vent go bizerk! Anthony told her to shoot the corn off her toe next and she laughed hard again. The head of speech came in to see us and knocked on the door before entering—I told mom, “Ditch the gun, the head of speech is here” and when he walked in cautiously confused, we all laughed hard again. We basically laughed all afternoon---one thing after another.
Anthony and mom looked at magazines and talked while I wrote all this up. The head of the speech department (who looked so young Anthony said we should have proofed him! Haha!), asked for an update on mom’s progress in the area of speech. I updated him—telling him that I felt that mom’s cognition far exceeds her ability to express herself—or so it appears. He asked if I thought speech therapy would help mom---Lord in heaven, people, professional people, never cease to amaze me!! What a question to ask. Does he think there are some people who would not benefit from therapy??? Does he feel there are some people who are not human enough to warrant trying to make their lives better?? Some of you reading this may not understand that speech therapy does not only include an ability to talk…there’s more to it. There is an ability to understand spoken language, written language, drawings, pictures, gestures, facial expression, body language… and, on the other side, there is the ability to convey thoughts, ideas, and needs through the exact same measures…writing, speaking, drawing, gesturing, facial expression, body language, pointing…so if you were to ask me if speech therapy would help someone…anyone…my answer is an empirical ‘Yes.’
Mom and I are sitting her now that she has just been moved back into bed, and we are listening to the soundtrack of “Out of Africa”---so majestic---but amongst the buzzing and beeping of numerous ventilators…an odd combination of sounds indeed. I thought I’d let mom rest a bit (her eyes are closed, but she’s squinting which is usually a sign that she isn’t really asleep). We are sitting beside each other, my head resting on her arm, holding hands…listening together in this strange place life has taken us… and I think about, while I am so blessed to be here with mom, how much, at the same time, I miss her.
Dad and Aunt Carol came just as mom awoke from a short nap and I was getting ready to go home. They said that they watched TV and chatted with mom and that she was awake but quiet.
I just got back from tucking mom in and praying over her. She was sound asleep.
This was the 7th day in a row that mom stayed awake all day!!!
"Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them." Psalm 126:2
No comments:
Post a Comment