Monday, February 27

Yesterday was definitely a struggle for Shar.  We knew that this would be a marathon and not a sprint and that there would be set-backs.  Shar was fortunate that her nurse Kelly was great with her over the weekend and strongly advocated for testing to get to the bottom of the issue.  It appears that her issues yesterday were related to a build up of carbon dioxide in her system - something that happened back in November when she was hospitalized.  She was put on a bipap breathing machine last night and seemed much improved this morning.  She was better with her verbal communication and her understanding.  

She had a long visit from Jerry today and they had lunch togerher.  She also had a good OT and PT session where they had her getting up from the bed and taking a few steps.  They also worked on her hand fuction.  

This afternoon, Shar started to feel shortness of breath and was also having trouble with her communication.  She actually asked to go back on the bipap (which she normally hates) and we were able to get respiratory therapy to hook her back up.  She is sleeping peacfully on the bipap right now and the plan is to keep it on until dinner comes.  Then she will go back on regular oxygen until bed time.

We are hoping she becomes medically stable at some point so she can be transferred to the Rehab.  While there, she will get more intensive therapy both physical as well as speech.  In the meantime, we are contiuning to work on strengthening her right hand and fingers, asking her to grip a stress ball shaped like a football.  And yes - we say fumble when she drops it.  We also bought her a finger exerciser to help get some strngth and control back in the fingers of her right hand to prevent them from staying closed.  She has been enthusiastic about using this and the football and has stayed motivated to get her range of motion back.  We are so proud of the progress that she has already made and look forward to seeing her continue making strides each day!