Saturday August 26, 2005

Saturday August 26, 2005 I arrived at the hospital about 8:20 with Kyle and Logan (we overslept a bit). Zack slept through the night and woke up starving. He ate all his breakfast, got dressed and said, “lets go”. We went to the nurse’s station so he could get weighed (130 #) and then headed to the conference room for our own therapy. Kathy (speech) had put a folder together for us so we would have something to work on. We did 12 pages in the matching section where he is shown numbers, letters or pictures and has to draw a line or circle the corresponding one. He got 100% on all of then until we got to words that had similar spellings. We moved to the auditory comprehension pages and these were much harder for him. He was shown a picture and I asked him to find different objects within the picture. He did well on the first two pages but then the pictures got a lot busier. We had worked for 45 minutes when I decided it was time to quit. Mrs. Funderburg (his middle school vice principal) had stopped by as we were finishing up and she went back to our room. Zack wanted to go somewhere so Mrs.Funderburg, Kyle, Logan and I took him for a ride to the deli. Zack wanted something to eat so we got mini chocolate donuts and pink lemonade. He was nearly finished with them by the time Kyle came back with her drink. I don’t think it will take us long to get him back up to training weight. At 11:00 Zack had his first meeting with Dr. Calvary (psychologist). She asked him how he felt and he said, “I feel kind of wacky”. He told her that sometimes he is sad and when she asked him if he ever gets frustrated and he said yes. She said what frustrates you and he answered something close to occupational therapy (she confirmed that was what he meant). She asked him if speech frustrates him and he said yes. O.K. get ready…She asked him “What do you do when you get frustrated”. He answered, “I talk to God”. She responded, “What does God tell you?” He said, “To stay the course”! I got cold chills. They talked some more about his friends, the facts that he likes to see them and he is not sad when they are here. He used some big vocabulary words (like inequitable) but not in the right context. Dr. Calvary talked some about the accident asking him yes or no questions. She told me he had a striking sense of awareness at this stage. She confirmed that our faith will help him recover. She is going to squeeze another meeting in on Tuesday between his other therapy sessions and she also wants to talk to Dr. Miller about starting Zack on a low dose of Zolof for depression. She explained it takes about 4 to 5 weeks before he would feel the full effect of Zolof (although he will get an immediate boost) so she wants him on it before he goes home. Zack had been taking a short nap after Dr. Calvary left and I had to wake him up to eat lunch at 12:30. We headed to the bathroom and he had another attack. This time he seemed to shake more in his legs. He ate all his lunch and we headed to the gym for O.T. with Jeff. He assembled the pipes to match pictures again and he did great. He did not get frustrated and responded well to Jeff. He pitched beanbags into a basketball goal and then passed 2 beanbags back and forth at the same time with Jeff. Before they were through he was juggling three beanbags with Jeff at a fast pace. He was laughing, especially if Jeff dropped one before he did. We were all impressed. Jeff asked him where he went to school and Zack told him CAL. We moved to the light board and Jeff set it so that only the lights on the right would light up. Zack got 29 before his time ran out in 60 seconds, which is unbelievable since he was only able to do 12 with his right hand a few days ago. At 2:00 he had art therapy in the conference room with 4 other patients (none of them had traumatic brain injuries). They did finger-painting but Zack did not like getting his hands dirty and got upset. We moved to a paintbrush and he participated for about 30 minutes. I think if he had a choice he would not do art therapy. We come back to the room to rest and he falls asleep in his recliner watching a baseball game. He wakes up to go to the bathroom and as we head that way he has another attack. He has had plenty of fluids today and I aggressively salted both breakfast and lunch. I still have not heard from Dr. Holmes on the results of his EEG. Donna and Scott talk me into some shopping therapy so I leave Zack in his Dad’s care tonight. Donna, Michelle (her daughter) and I take Kyle and Logan out to eat and my phone rings. When I answer a voice says, “what’s up” and I realize it’s Zack. He says we’re at McDonalds and starts laughing. Scott had taken the pedways to Kosair Children’s Hospital where they have a McDonalds. They get ice cream and French fries and had a great time. Later back in the room Scott asked Zack, “I heard you talked to God”. Zack nods yes. Scott says, “You mean you prayed to God”. Zack said, “No I met him”. Scott was a little freaked out and told him that they would have to talk more about it later. They talked about the accident and Scott explained again that he hit his head really hard and they had to remove his bone flap so his brain could swell. Then Zack felt all over his head so he could tell where the bone was gone. Zack seems so clear minded at times. He can have a conversation with you and understand everything. But then at other times the aphasia kicks in and his sentences don’t make sense. We feel so fortunate that Zack has come so far in such a short period of time. We truly feel that Zack is experiencing a unique connection to God and He is revealing Himself to Zack. I pray that one day Zack will have the opportunity to share his talks with God to many people so they will believe that He does hear and answer our prayers. Continue to pray for Zack’s healing. Pray for all those people who don’t have a relationship with God to carry them through rough times. To God be the Glory!