September 7

I wanted to write a quick update about the family meeting yesterday.  The meeting went well.  Tom was given a tentative discharge date as September 28th, 4 weeks from when he was admitted.  He has a team of therapists that meet on Tuesday mornings and discuss his progress from the week before, and discuss his goals for the week.

Here is a quick summary;

For physical therapy, he is doing very well.  His body is strong, and the main issue is his balance at this point.  He gets tired during physical therapy because he has to concentrate on keeping his balance, sometimes he cannot understand what they ask him to do.  They will break up his physical therapy into 2 sessions to help with the mental fatigue.

As for occupational therapy, he is doing better, but does not always initiate what he needs to do.  They said his issues with cognition play a part of that as well.

As for speech therapy, he has been a very interesting case for the speech therapists.  He is not like anyone they have seen or read about at this point.  His issues are intermittent.  One moment he understands completely what is being asked to say or do, and the next moment he is confused.  So that would be the biggest prayer request right now.  The therapist is wonderful, but her job seems the hardest at this point, since his cognition effects all the other areas.

I think this area is obviously the one that effects his spirit as well.  He knows that sometimes he understands and sometimes says things the wrong thing, or gets focused on something and cannot shake it, even if it is not true. 

From my short visit yesterday, he was tired and a little crabby, but he was Tom. His awareness amazes me at times.  Bryan visited later and showed him a video of his house.  Tom narrated as they watched.  He showed him some wedding pictures, which he enjoyed.  (Tom called his son Michael and congratulated him on his wedding the other day.)

Please pray for continued strength in his physical therapy and continued healing in the areas of cognition that are not consistent at this point.  And continue to pray for hope and peace.  As he becomes more aware, he could easily become more sad and frustrated with all that has happened to him.  He has read some of this blog I was told, and he knows there are a lot of people praying for him.  Maybe next time I visit, I will ask for prayer requests that he has personally.  Right now I think that would be that he just wants to go home.

Thanks for praying,

Brenna