Day 19 at Shepherd. Very little formal therapy for Jan today but I did a fair amount with her. I had her up walking with her walker a couple of times today and had her do some problem solving. She did not want to do any of it but did. She is and has been having a very hard time with what she best describes as dizziness. This I think is her primary limiting factor and is very much affecting her therapy and mood. She is crying a large part of the time and dreads doing pretty much anything because of how she feels. She cries frequently about being tired of being sick. With what she has gone through and is going through she has good reason to feel this way and has good reason for depression. She also frequently expresses her anger toward the person that did this to her. I clearly understand this. Not only is she experiencing the dizziness but she is hypersensitive to any discomfort. Given the massive trauma this is not unexpected. Ares of noticeable pain include her back (compression fx), hand (severe fracture) and peg (feeding tube through abdominal wall) site pain. There are also the cognitive difficulties that she is well aware of. All of these together I feel are compromising her progress but I have to wonder if these are necessary evils that we have to work through. I do not think any of us can understand truly what she is experiencing. I do think the dizziness is her biggest obstacle. With brain injury this can be related to the middle ear but does not seem like typical vertigo. Some may be related to orthostasis. Her hypertension med has been stopped and her blood pressure remains good. I did a tilt test on her today and her blood pressure did drop some but not to a significantly low level. Jan is aware enough to realize her dizziness could be a side effect of some of her meds. She wants to stop them all but I have talked her into doing one at a time. We have to convince her docs of this but knowing my little wife they may not be given a choice. She also wants her peg out. The protocol here is for the patient to be eating consistently 75% of their meals. Jan is not eating that much but she may not give them the option on this either. Ironically she will periodically start crying for fear of the pain she is worried there may be when it is removed. On my end it hurts me to watch the difficulties with what Jan is going through. It is different from when she was critically ill in the ccu. She asks repeatedly for me to do things for her that could undermine her treating physicians such as stopping the meds and getting her peg out and begging me to take her home all with tears in her eyes. It is hard to get her to understand especially when she has these big crocodile tears in her eyes that as she is now I can not take care of everything that would need to be done at home and do what is necessary for her. She seems to understand when I tell her this but this is a recurring conversation. I just keep telling her it will get better, it will just take time. This being patient stuff seems to apply no matter what phase we are in. Seeing her hurt like she is now is almost as bad as when she was critically ill. At least now I know she will get better and TIGT. Now we both have to be patient. I understand that, she can't see it yet since the way she feels now is the only way she can remember feeling since she was hit and that is what is hard.
SHARE THE ROAD, IT'S A LIFE
PUT THE !%@$# CELL PHONE DOWN BEFORE YOU KILL SOMEBODY
GET OFF THE COUCH, LIFE IS FOR DOING STUFF
SUPPORT BIKE WALK MISSISSIPPI, THEY WILL HELP MAKE CHANGES HAPPEN
BE BRIGHT AND BE SEEN
I Love My Little Darlin, she is so much better than 7 weeks but this phase is all she feels and it sucks for her
David
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