Wednesday September 28, 2005

Wednesday September 28, 2005 Zack got up early and had breakfast before I arrived at 7:30 and was back in bed. I got him up so he could shower and get dressed. Mary Beth (OT) came to our room to work with him on writing. They look through his photo album at all his friends and Zack laughs at the girls sitting on his lap. She has him write the date and a sentence “Today I will do 26 push-ups”. He corrects his own mistakes. His cursive writing has improved a lot. She then gives him a piece of paper with little squares on it and a time in each square. He then takes pictures of clocks and has to match them up with the appropriate square. He gets them all correct but the aphasia prevents him from saying it correctly. 9:00 Speech with Kathy and they work on word finding and sentence completion. He gets stuck on the word “backwards” and tries to use it in each sentence. He tries so hard to find the right word and apologizes constantly for not coming up with it. She hid money around the room and will test his memory later. Then she gave him pictures and letters to spell out what was in the picture. He could unscramble the letters correctly but aphasia prevented him from saying it correctly. Time to find the money and he knows where it is (teenagers can smell money). Kathy asked him what he was having his surgery for on Wednesday. He pointed to his head. She asked him what are they going to do to your head. He took off his helmet and rubbed the top of his head. “You see this? They have to fix it”. P.T. with Amy and they do path finding. Started at the elevator and walked through the lobby to the Heart & Lung Building 5th floor waiting room. Had to help him with finding the stairs but he did pretty good. They worked on balance and he did 17 minutes on the stationary bike. After P.T. he wants to go back to his room and get his belt because his pants keep falling down. Even though he sees his therapist twice a day he still cannot remember their names (short term memory). O.T. with Mary Beth and he arrives a little late. Since he watches the clock he knows he is late and goes looking for Mary Beth. He opens the door to the office and says, “What’s up? Come on”. He works on the computer with a program that shows a picture and three word choices. He gets a few and misses a few, there seems to be no consistency. He enjoys playing but the aphasia prevents him from winning. He smiles and says, “I’m a loser”. Mary Beth assures him he is not. He does a lot better at playing Solitaire on the computer. Afternoon Speech and they play the game “Guess Who” and Zack wins twice. Then they work on object identification and this is where we really see the aphasia in full force. She places several objects in front of him and asked him to point to the one she names. He gets 8 out of 10. But then when she holds each object up and ask him what it is he can’t tell her. He knows what the object is he just can’t find the word. P.T. with Amy and she reminds him that he told Mary Beth he would do 26 push-ups. His arms were shaking but he did them. Then he did leg lifts with ankle weights. Afternoon O.T. was cancelled and Zack is enjoying his time off. Tiffany comes to hang out and Zack is in a really good mood, joking and singing. He says he can play the guitar, play the piano and fly a plane (he can’t do any although he’s not bad picking our tunes on a guitar). They go for a walk, and another walk and another walk. Nick, Liz and Carly come and the dancing begins. Then we all head to McDonalds because Zack doesn’t like the looks of his dinner. Later Marissa and her Mom drop by and we talk about his possible trip to Texas. It is nerve wracking not knowing what’s going to happen and the time ticking away. We have a big day tomorrow and Zack is tired so I don’t fight him too much about getting in bed at 8:30. He dozes and then watches TV. Tomorrow the Centre for Neuro Skills comes to evaluate Zack. We should know if insurance would approve it tomorrow. Then we have our recreational outing to Lucky Strike to go bowling. It will be a busy, exciting day and I hope it ends with news that we are going to become Cowboys Fans. Please pray that we will embrace whatever decision is made regarding the next step in Zack’s recovery. Please pray for an end to the aphasia and for complete recovery.