February 2007
30 posts
2 tags
1/31/07 - 9:19 PM PST
John received some disappointing news today from the neuro ophthalmologist. This doctor believes that John’s peripheral vision on his right side has been permanently damaged, thus a disability he will have to live with and adjust to. John also finished his 8 hour neuro psychological exam. Today there was more math, and again today John struggled as he could not remember how to do some math...
January 2007
30 posts
1 tag
1/30/07 - 10:09 PM PST
Today John underwent a 4 hour test. The test was designed to see where his therapy needs to go next. It was tough for Sally to watch at times, because the questions asked of John could have been easily answered 7 weeks ago. It also tired John out and gave him another headache. Today there was also confusion at the hospital on where John is to go next. He was to go to the MIT infirmary later this...
1 tag
1/29/07 - 10:34 PM PST
John had a good day today. He started receiving his wake up meds (Providual) at 7:00 am instead of at 9:00 am. The therapists were happy because John was wide awake by 9:00 am. In Occupational Therapy, his mission was to type an email to a friend. This was a bit frustrating for John because he could not remember his password. It was a Latin password (ad infinitum) and he had intermingled it with...
1 tag
1/27/07 - 7:12 PM PST
John had a fairly good day today. He was animated and very talkative. He did well in his Occupational and Physical therapy. In fact John felt it was not “difficult” enough for him. He really wanted speech therapy becuase he realizes his reading and writing are his weakest skills right now. Today, they tapered off on the steroids from 3 milligrams to 1 milligram. However, this gave him...
1 tag
1/26/07 - 6:39 PM PST
Today was a good day for John. He had two sessions of speech/writing therapy, physcial and occupational therapy. One thing the hospital psychiatrist told us is that John’s development will be like he is growing up all over again. For example, toddlers can walk before they can talk. They can talk before they can read. And they can read before they can write. John is going through this...
1 tag
1/25/07 - 7:54 PM PST
John had a good day today. He started taking the drug Providual. This is a drug that makes you alert to over come John’s grogginess from his other meds. In fact, pilots take this drug to stay awake on long flights. However it did not start working until 3:00 PM today. John may be the first patient in history to ride the exercise bike this morning asleep. Just kidding, but he was still...
1 tag
1/24/07 - 9:35 PM PST
Today was a good day for John. He had his “best night sleep” yet. He had no room mate so it was very quiet. His headaches are under control thanks to the medication. We got a list of all of his medications and pills he is taking each and they add up to 23 pills! He drinks a lot of water to down those pills. He is still a little groggy with all of those pills, so he will get one more to...
1 tag
1/23/07 - 10:20 PM PST
John had a better day today. He had no headaches today thanks to a change in his medication. Without the headaches he feels much better. When this happens, he feels like getting up and moving around and going to therapy. He also moved rooms once again to get away from the snorer and sleep talker. He is now in 628. Dr. Chae also told us today that having a seizure is not necessarily bad. Many times...
1 tag
1/22/07 - 8:27 PM PST
Today John was still experiencing head aches, so Doctor Chae ordered another CT scan to see if there were any changes in John’s brain activity. The good news was there were no changes. But he still had headaches. So Dr Chae put him back on the steroids that were used to augment his platelets. His theory is that the steroids will help with vascular swelling and fluid buildup. John did go for...
1 tag
1/21/07 - 8:45 PM PST
John had a bit of a tough day today. He got a headache last night and it lasted well into the afternoon on Sunday. The doctors are giving him many many pills to: help his learning, control his seizures, help his anxiety, alleviate his headaches, etc. Each of the pills has side effects, so they give him other pills to counteract these side effects. Thus they are not exactly sure what is causing his...
1 tag
1/20/07 - 8:20 PM PST
Today was the first day Robin had seen John in 19 days. He noticed quite a difference with John. He noticed many of his mannerisms are back. His vocabulary continues to improve. There are moments when John appears to be like his old self. Robin has also noticed that John is more loquacious or talkative now than before. John is an analytical, so he tended to listen more than talk. John was very...
1 tag
1/19/07 - 5:55 PM PST
John had a fairly quiet day today. He is stable again after his seizure on Tuesday. For the past 3 days, he has undergone many tests and procedures, but they cannot determine the cause of his seizure. It might be related to some of his medications, like Ritalin. So they are changing this and his anti-seizure medication. The doctors have said it is okay to go back to Spalding Rehabilitation...
1 tag
1/17/07 - 8:50 PM PST
An update from this morning. The doctors are doing more testing on John. They did another urine sample, and the urinary tract infection is under control. So they don’t think this is what caused the seizure. At 6:00 PM PST, they did the 3rd CT scan in two days. They also did an electrical encephalogram. This checks for electrical brain waves. As of tonight, they are uncertain what caused the...
1 tag
1/17/07 - 10:28 AM PST
After the night, we found out that John is doing okay. He is staying at MGH today and they are testing him for why the seizure started. The doctors believe that a urinary track infection may have caused or had something to do with the seizure. The bleeding that occurred appeared was not caused by the seizure. And there is no further bleeding. A thanks goes out to Valene for sending Sally a care...
1 tag
1/16/07 - 7:08 PM PST
John had a bit of a set back today. He had a seizure about 10:00 AM PST during his occupational therapy. The doctor said it is not unusual for a patient in John’s condition to have seizures. He has been on anti-seizure medicine. But to be safe, they transported him back to Mass General Hospital (from Spalding Rehabilitation Hospital). He had two CT scans today. The first one indicated there...
1 tag
1/15/07 - 10:43 PM PST
Today John saw Joey and Leo, two alumni he had not seen in a couple of weeks. They both noted nice improvement in John. Again, more verification that John does not see. John worked on Sudoko puzzle today and finished it. In speech therapy he did some listening comprehension. The first exercise, he only got 1 out of 5 questions right.Then the next two exercises he got 4 out of 5 questions right....
1 tag
1/14/07 - 11:29 PM PST
John spent the day with his cousin Kyle while Sally got a little bit of a break. Dr. Rhinehart took Sally shopping at Costco to buy so more hospital pants for John and some things at Trader Joes. John played video games for the first time since 12/14/06. He admitted he was not very good, but he was able to navigate the screens. We suspect as his vision gets better, like dominoes, everything else...
1 tag
1/14/07 - 1:05 PM PST
As today was Saturday, there was only Occupational Therapy. It was short and they were exercises in the kitchen showing John how to make juice. There was one change that Sally noted today for the first time. When she walked in on John in the AM, he was studying and pronouncing his vocabulary words. This is the first time that he has studied on his own, that she is aware of. Up to now, he only...
1 tag
1/13/07 - 12:51 AM PST
One correction from the blog earlier today. The clot in John’s stomach was not from the skull cap and the brain. It was probably formed in the muscle of the stomach area when the skull cap was inserted. John said afterwards “wow this is a lot more comfortable, there was a lot of pressure there.” John ate very well tonight as he had to fast earlier, and there is just a tad more...
1 tag
1/12/07 - 1:49 PM PST
We had a little bit of a scare yesterday as the CT scan indicated that John had blood in his stomach around the skull cap. The procedure to remove that blood happened today. The procedure was pretty quick and successful. John was awake and Sally was there during the procedure. They will do a blood test to ensure there is nothing wrong with the blood; but it appears all is well on this front. The...
1 tag
1/11/07 - 10:54 PM PST
John had a little bit of a set back today. As some of you will remember, John had his skull cap temporarily placed in between his skin and stomach. Well over the past few days, that section of his stomach has grown to the size of a “cantaloupe” per Sally. So the they gave him an Ultrasound and CT scan and they determined that blood is pooling down there. Thus, they will have to go in...
1 tag
1/10/07 - 10:18 PM PST
John’s physical therapy today focused on his eyes. Some of you may remember that when the neurosurgeon removed the blood clots from his brain, he left part of the clot near the eye center in the brain. He was concerned he may make John blind. Eventually the clot should be absorbed by the body. As a result, John has some trouble focusing on words and he can get dizzy and or headaches. So...
1 tag
1/9/07 - 9:44 PM PST
John had a pretty good day today. In his physical therapy, he walked up 4 flights of stairs. Robin asked John how did that go. John said he had to get two drinks of water and “my legs were tired and shaking.” He made this statement without much hesitation. Robin had not talked with John in about 3 days over the phone, and he noticed there is a little less hesitancy in Johns vocabulary....
1 tag
1/8/07 - 6:16 PM PST
Today was a good day for John. The doctor increased his dosage of Ritalin. The doctor said, he is probably getting headaches as his brain is in overdrive trying to learn new things. A higher dosage should make it easier for him to learn. The result? No headaches today. John also had a good speech therapy session today. The therapist asked John to write down what he saw in the picture. The picture...
1 tag
1/7/07 - 8:15 PM PST
As today was Sunday, John had no therapy. But he did have several visitors from PBE (his fraternity): Gordon and his girl friend Christine, Chris, Tiffany, and Josh were visitors today. John really likes visitors. The interaction is good for his vocabulary. Alan, another one of his brothers is going to start a “sign up” schedule at the fraternity so that John gets a lot of visitors but...
1 tag
1/7/07 - 3:30 PM PST
As the weather reached 69 degrees in Boston today, John was able to go outside about an hour and one half with Josh. There was no therapy today, so this was a nice substitute. They also watched some videos today. This allowed Sally some free time to do some shopping with Dr. Rhinehart and get out of the hospital environment for awhile. John was up quite a bit today, but then got a another big...
1 tag
1/5/07 - 8:52 PM PST
Today John was awake and on his feet for a very long time. Maybe the longest day yet. He also asked for seconds at dinner. Both signs that John is feeling better. However, later on in the PM, he got a pretty large headache and had to take some heavier pain killers until the pain went away. He also had his stitches removed from his stomach. He was happy to have these out as the stitches were...
1 tag
1/4/07 - 10:27 PM PST
The doctors and case worker met with Sally today in person and Robin by phone. Here are some of the updates: The physical therapist says John should be independently mobile sometime in January. He still experiences some dizziness, but this is to be expected with brain injuries (swelling, blood pressure, etc). His heart rate has been high at times, due to anxiety, but this again is normal due to...
1 tag
1/3/07 - 9:34 PM PST
Today we thought we would update you on questions you have regarding John, since many of you have similar questions. 1. How long will John be in the hospital? We are not sure, but he has to be there for a couple more weeks at least so he can finish his Penicillin IV. The strep bacteria that he acquired also attacked his heart (endocarditis), so they want to be sure the bacteria is totally...
1 tag
1/2/07 - 1:00 PM PST
Many of you have wanted more specifics on John’s speech. Here is one example of one: Dad asked him over the phone what he had for dinner last night. John said I cannot think of the word. Dad said can you describe it? John said, “you see it in water” then added “it is kind of orange.” Dad still did not know what it was. So he asked John to spell it out if he could....
1 tag
1/1/07 - 3:34 PM PST
John got a new roomate today. Unfortunately, he is hard of hearing, so he talks loud to the nurses and the nurses talk loud to the patient, thus making it hard for John to sleep and rest. As it is New Years day, there is no therapy today, so Sally is walking John around and reviewing his speech therapy with him. Remember, to reach Sally, you can call her at 425-417-6648 anytime if you are a...
