I just looked at the clock and realized that at this very minute one month ago, I received a phone call from the Hampton Inn hotel employee Barbara that began with "I think there's something wrong with Mr. Urich". Those minutes are frozen in time and I recall with complete clarity the helplessness of being hundreds of miles away and the agonizing uncertainty if that night was when my dad would be taken from me, from all of us.
So much has changed in a month.
In one month he has gone from ICU in Baton Rouge, flown on a medical jet, ICU and then floor at Hershey Medical Center, inpatient at Osteopathic Rehab, and now home in his own room.
He spent over 1/4 of this past month intubated on a ventilator. During this past month he had to relearn simple things like how to walk again, how to use a fork and eat independently, how to do his own bathing. The first week off the ventilator he was fairly confused, unable to recall dates and places, unable to correctly identify many people he's known his whole life. Now he easily knows who everyone is, does simple crossword puzzles at the dining room table, and is recalling all kinds of things that I never knew. He is still fuzzy with memory, he has a hard time keeping the timeline of the last month straight and remembering which hospitals he was at. His short-term memory is still dodgy overall. I tease him that this gives him an excuse for life: "It's not that I'm getting old and can't remember things, I blame the brain infection!". I figure he can keep that ace up his sleeve indefinitely.
His cognition is very much there, he just has difficulty focusing for long periods, coping with distractions, and paying sharp attention to detail. These things will definitely improve. We practice doing simple math at home, balancing checkbooks, puzzles, doing brain games. We did a game today that my friend Katie recommended, where I name a month and he names the holidays that fall during that month. I named February and he not only named Valentine's Day and Groundhog Day, but Washington's birthday & Lincoln's birthday (of which he knew the exact dates). I am a terrible citizen, I didn't even know their birthdays were in February. My brain-injured dad is teaching me all kinds of things.
After one month the biggest barriers continue to be his severe neck pain and extreme fatigue, both associated with his brain infection/injury. His neck hurts so much and he's so tired that he tends to find a comfortable spot in bed and wants to just stay there. So he needs continued encouragement to get out of bed for more than just meals/shower. He's beginning to get aches, pains, and muscle stiffness from being in the bed for so long. We are trying to get him in the habit of stretching and doing small range of motion exercises every time he gets out of bed. I also threw out all his ice packs. He kept wanting to put ice on EVERYTHING, his neck, shins, ankles, joints. The cold was locking him up and making things worse, so I told him when he has aches and pains he has to get out of bed and stretch for awhile then he could have 20 minutes of a heating pad. Although I'm glad to report his appetite is definitely back. He lost about 35 pounds in the hospital, he looked so peaky last week. But now after some home cooking he's eating well and looks healthier.
Thinking back to what he looked like when I first walked in his room in the ICU in Louisiana to where he is now, I'm ecstatic. He still has a long road of healing ahead of him, it will take a lot more time and patience. But he's made enormous progress.
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