Hi Everyone,
Parent Premed classes are on the fast track at BMR! There was so much information tonight I took notes…3 pages worth!
This is the scoop;
The Treatment Team consists of PT, OT, ST, Neurology, Clinicians/MD and Corey’s Case Manager. They meet once a week to discuss what they’ve observed from week to week. They set weekly goals, track progress and evaluate the length of stay based on her age and state of recovery. This is how they calculate the move from inpatient to outpatient status.
This week is the Initial Evaluation week. They are observing what will be her baseline. They also determine what her key issues are (I offered to help with that but they wanted “Post” accident). Next week they will begin to mark the measurable differences.
Her range of motion is limited in some limbs. She’s tight but not inflexible. She does have negative range in her ankles and is wearing boots. She also has hand splints to help her wrists. They rotate these 2 hours on, 2 hours off. She might have what’s called casting. They will actually cast her feet to stretch the muscles for a few days then remove the casts. When PT works with her, her range will improve after the casting.
Corey is in a Comma Emergence Program. This means that they are going to gear much of her therapy towards sensory stimulation preventative therapy. They are looking for that primitive response to protect herself. For instance, they put her hand in Ice Water. She didn’t pull her hand out quickly, but she did slowly raise her hand out of the Ice Water, which is a great sign…she felt it and didn’t like it! They counted that as a “withdrawal”…we like withdrawals.
Speech is measuring her secretions. This tells them if she can manage swallowing. She has minimal secretions. Also a good thing, she’s already managing her saliva which is a step closer to taking out her trach. If she continues, they will switch it to a speech trach, then cap it, then remove it! A technique that Speech Therapy uses is a Lemon Ice Spoon. Think about Lemonade on a summer day. It’s really refreshing but after you have it, your mouth fills with saliva from the sour taste. Now think about stubborn Corey…she didn’t like this technique and the Speech Therapists know without question that Corey has a strong bite reflex! There was NO WAY she was going to taste that Lemon Ice Spoon!
The Neurology team is evaluating the Comma recovery scale this week. That’s different than the scale Christiana used. Details on that next week. She had a CAT scan today to check the shunt and swelling. We have a follow up with the Ortho and Neurologists next week.
So far we know she had response to the ice, her eyes are usually open 75-100% during the PT/OT sessions, her eye tracking is inconsistent, she prefers a right gaze, no cognitive command responses, no motor command responses, but she did have some moaning and grunting during her session today. That is the first vocal response since the accident. She’s gearing up to tell these people off for tormenting her I’m sure. We all know that Corey didn’t have a filter, so God help this team when she does vocalize!
I have to admit its unnerving to sit in this “wait and see” stage. Communication is going to be key. It’s more comforting hearing what techniques the teams are using and hearing their goals and vision for her. This will be a slow process but sharing the details helps make it a little more bearable.
Corey is sleeping well tonight! So will we…Thanks for keeping us close to your hearts. Love, The Beatties