Walking Distance

Sorry folks for taking so long to post an update.  We’re settled in at the nursing home, which is about 1/2 a mile from my apartment complex – walking distance!

We’ve had a few of the usual hiccups with nursing and the techs.  I don’t believe the staff at the nursing home are generally used to a young person that is 100% dependent for care, fed through a tube, not able to assist with transfers, etc.  I think we can work around this, though.

We wheeled Chris over to my apartment complex last Saturday, first time he’s been back since the end of April!  My apartment is on the third floor, but the garage is downstairs and “wheelchair accessible”…  we hung out and looked at motorcycles and tools for an hour, before wheeling back over to the nursing home.  Mom also brought the dogs down to the garage for Chris to see.

I spent an FMLA day at the hospital on Wednesday, and was generally satisfied with things.  The techs were generally available to help with cleanup, and most of the nurses have been OK.  Need to occasionally remind folks to keep their hands clean, not put the end of the feeding tube in filth…  these are common-sense “fixable” things, though.  This place is so close to home and to work, that I’ve even been able to stop by over lunch…  whoa, so much closer than Texas Neuro in south Austin!

I’m not sure the nursing home is going to be able to help Chris much in terms of therapy.  My folks are continuing with the Dannon yogurt feeding by mouth – speech therapy – and can usually can get through about 4 ounces of the stuff before it becomes too runny.  We’re doing the range of motion stuff in the morning with legs and arms, but they don’t have the right standing frame for Chris in the PT/OT gym (so no neck exercises yet – it’s a lot easier to do these in the standing frame).

As always, visitors are welcome.

I suppose that’s about it for now.  I think I’d like for us to take Chris back to University Hospital at some point for a follow-up appointment with the original neurology folks, maybe do another round of CT/MRI imaging?  Dunno how that’s going to work out in terms of logistics…  I don’t think the nursing home is going to handle transport to SATX.

(more random thoughts as I think of them!)