Well that went by quickly! Chris is being discharged from this second round at TIRR on Sunday, February 10th.
My parents say Chris has made a considerable amount of progress this time. The therapists continue to add new activities and goals, too. The speech therapy folks have also officially confirmed – with an endoscopic evaluation – that Chris can indeed be safely fed small amounts of “pleasure food” again. I’d say we stopped giving Chris yogurt by mouth about halfway through our time at RIOSA in San Antonio, more than a year ago!
The therapists at TIRR are also working on a head switch system to control a PC. At the moment, making a choice between two user-defined item areas on the screen like “music” or “read a book”.
A minor setback: Chris started having seizures this week on Tuesday night. The episodes continued throughout the day and they eventually transferred Chris (and my dad) to Memorial Hermann hospital for the rest of the day / evening for observation. The thought is that maybe the dosage of the neurostimulant Amantadine was a little bit too aggressive. He’s also been more seizure-prone in the past if he had any kind of infection, or was feeling extreme discomfort (choking – and the associated panic of not being able to breathe – is a trigger). Chris is back at TIRR and seems to be OK now, but probably knackered from the whole thing (along with an equally-knackered father).
Hopefully Chris and the team of therapists can pick up where they left off to finish out this final week or so on a positive and successful note!
More updates soon.
