Keeping track

On Thursday we wheelchaired across the parking lot between the facility where Nancy is and another with assisted-living characteristics.  Nancy and other “fiddlers and friends” played music for a few folks in the dinning room.

Friday A.M. they have also taken the wheelchair away.  She is able to get out of bed and use the walker.  When it is not within reach she still is supposed to have someone move it into position and lock the wheels.  She can take herself to the potty, now fitted with a raised platform with arm rests.  This is making everyone’s day more pleasant.

If she is in a chair with a low seat she may still need a little tug to get vertical but less so each day.

Today I took my car to the back of the building.  Nancy trundled outside using the 4-wheeled walker and the physical therapist explained a safe way for her to approach, back up to, and seat herself in the passenger seat.  She did this more easily than we expected – even after a rather strenuous workout during the morning (inside) exercises.

The immediate need for the correct manner of getting in and out of the car is so we can go to another music session on Saturday.  The place is not far away but enough so that she is not ready to go that far with just the walker and I don’t want to push a wheelchair that far.  I think this little trip is on the level of Ivory Soap®-sure* but check back.

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* 99.44 % :  See 3^rd paragraph in History, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_(soap)

The assembled members of the nursing and therapy council pronounced a stellar performance by Nancy at this point in her rehabilitation.

I think the thing that confounds just about all of us is that no one is quite sure of what Nancy is being rehabilitated from.  People tend to view situations a little differently based on their own previous experiences.  The views of the people we talked with today are influenced by the many patients they have cared for with injuries or strokes.  Nancy has a combination of factors that have incapacitated her but injury (a shattered hip from a fall, say) and stroke are not among her problems.

I wish I knew more about the damage done to organs and cells in the few days in late November and early December but it seems to me that the body’s natural repair of these things was a slow process.  During much of December this process was underway but complicated by the faulty heart.  This resulted in many days of “down time” for Nancy during which her muscles went unused.

In the midst of all this was open heart surgery.

Nancy can extract herself from bed, stand and move into either a walker or a wheel chair, and move about.  The seat of the wheel chair is lower to the floor than the bed so (today) it still required a helpful tug for her to achieve vertical status from the chair.  Still all this seems to be progressing well and a little faster than some thought it would.

One issue all would like complete recover for is the inability to maintain bladder control.  This function was compromised by the extended lack of use of the muscles and the use of a catheter.  In recent weeks Nancy has not been able to get out of bed on her own nor to get on to or off of the potty.  Help has not been timely, creating frequent unpleasantries for Nancy and the staff.

Following from Nancy’s increased mobility and ability to sit and stand from taller items, today a raised platform with arms was fitted over the low commode.  This and an introduction to “Kegel exercises” should soon resolve the problem and everyone, especially Nancy, will soon give a shout of joy.

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If you care: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kegel_exercise

Nancy was carted over to the hospital this afternoon and seated between the open ends of a horseshoe-shaped thingy that lit up a monitor with an image (in shades of white, gray, and black) of her mouth and jaw, and points south.  Lowest on the screen were the top two metal sutures used to tightly re-close her split sternum.  If you lower your chin to your chest you will come close to where the top one of these appears.

Nancy was given food items containing a small amount of Barium sulfate that acts as a contrast agent with respect to the body tissue and bones.  That is, whereever this stuff goes can be seen on the screen as near black globs.  Because Barium is of relatively high atomic number (Z = 56), its compounds absorb X-rays more strongly than compounds derived from lighter nuclei.  Although barium is a heavy metal, and its water-soluble compounds are often highly toxic, the extremely low solubility of barium sulfate protects the patient from absorbing harmful amounts of the metal. Barium sulfate is also readily removed from the body.

The compound is administered as a suspension of fine particles mixed with foods of different texture.  Nancy had grape juice, applesauce, a fruit mixture, mashed banana, and mashed chicken.  Following her time in the ICU with tubes down her gullet Nancy existed primarily on non-solid foods, especially fortified drinks.  As more-solid textures were introduced she became accustomed to small bites and tentative swallowing.  Frequently she would chew something for awhile and then spit out the solid parts.

The passageway from lips to stomach experienced little real action for many weeks.  The muscles along the way degraded, lost their tone, or underwent “disuse atrophy.”  I think this is what we suspected and confirmed today.

As Nancy ingested the barium sulfate laced food all parts worked as they should except at the very lower limit of the image there was a just noticeable slowing of the material (the dark glob on the screen) and then it dropped out of range for the set-up being used.  Thus, while her real food intake is improving she instinctively remains cautious and rightly takes small amounts and swallows carefully.

In the room today for the exam we had Nancy, the imaging specialist, two swallowing specialists, and me.  Not that my opinion was needed, but we all agreed on what we saw, and what we thought it meant.

During Nancy’s time in the hospital (except when sedated) she continued to use her hands and arms – right more than left.  Since January 20^th she has had therapy on a regular basis.  Yesterday she was able to play her violin for the hour jam session with her friends, and it is now six weeks since open heart surgery.

However, Nancy is not yet able to get herself out of bed nor into a standing position from a sitting position.  Noticeable progress is apparent as regards these very visible muscular activities.  The tone of these less used muscles is returning more slowly than those in her hands and arms.  It seems reasonable that the equally atrophied muscles used for eating that we cannot see at work will likewise take longer to regain their capabilities.

So, having found nothing really out-of-whack, we expect continued improvement.

[whack?  See:   http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-out2.htm ]

Well, the work week began.  Everyone did their job as usual.  Nothing was particularly exciting or new.  All those with some knowledge of the rehabilitation process that talked to us said it would be slow.  It is slow.  What more can I say.

I’ve got some paperwork to catch up on.  You probably do to.