The Blessing Of Warm Sunshine

Jackie woke up this morning facing another full day of therapies.  He seemed awake and ready for breakfast.  Before he ate he had an ADL, activities of daily living, session with OT.  He worked to get himself ready by helping to get himself dressed as much as possible.  He washed his face at the sink and brushed his teeth.  I made him some instant oatmeal and Jackie ate the entire serving.  If you ask Jim it was basically brown sugar with a little bit of oatmeal.  What can I say, sugar is Jackie and my favorite food group.  Plus I added 4oz of milk to help with Jackie’s fluid intake so it really wasn’t that bad.  Jackie also drank more than he had in days.  PTL

We were just finishing up when the weekend speech therapist came in.  She works at Magee’s day rehab but does a weekend shift every now and then.  We all stayed in Jackies room for the session.  By the time 30 minutes had passed he was falling asleep in his chair.  ADL sessions generally tire him out.  We decided to get Jackie back in bed and finish the session there.  The move woke him up enough to finish the session.  Then he slept for a while.  When he woke up we warmed up lunch and that ran right into PT at 2pm.  Ally, a regular PT staffer, came to take Jackie to the gym.  We followed and stayed in the gym throughout the session.  Ally did a lot of stretching and also worked on sitting balance using Pete’s game.  This time it was NBA focused.  Jackie did not do as well, he was extremely tired.  We are starting to see a pattern with Jackie’s behavior after taking one of his meds for his muscle spasms.  Even though he is on an extremely low dose it seems to wipe him out.  We are thinking that maybe keeping him on just one dose at night may best.  We will review with Dr. K on Monday.

We decided to go outside for some sunshine.  We reclined Jackie in his chair and let him rest for about a half hour.  Jackie loves the sun and seemed to  enjoy it’s warmth, not to mention it’s vitamin D benefits.  When we went inside we knew Magee staffers were going to try once again to put another IV in.  It was a success this time.  The sun had warmed up Jackies body and had brought veins that had been hiding to the surface.  PTL

After another quick nap with IV fluids running, we got Jackie up for dinner and a shower.  He was tired but able to take his evening meds and fall asleep.

Today we saw glimpses of improvement and we hope it builds with each passing day.