Day Thirty Five

6:29 PM

I just now got a minute to update the blog. It has been a very busy day. Don was still asleep when I arrived this morning. He still had his oxygen on so I know he hadn't been awake enough to have someone take it off for him. Sometimes when I arrive in the mornings, he will already have it off and he tells me he has been awake but has fallen back asleep. When breakfast came he woke up and He had all his breakfast. He got dressed (with our help) before 10:00 and then had a piece of pie as a snack. He feed himself although it was very difficult. It takes him a while with the "cuff" to do this with the hand that has the cast on it. He has no wrist movement because of the cast, so he is very limited in getting food onto the spoon. This band fits on his fingers and fastens with a Velcro strap. It has a hard piece of plastic that is angled and on that piece of plastic is a "pocket" that will hold a spoon or fork. He took his pain medicine about 10:30 so that he would be ready for PT. We had our first meeting with the Social Worker and staff regarding this week's progress. The PT supervisor told us that he was totally dependent. I guess we knew that, but it had never been spoken. That was a blow. He also stated that Don had good motivation, good family support and that with time, he should be able to recover very well. They want more time with Don and feel that he needs it in order to make a better recovery but that the health insurance was only allowing 120 of therapy a day. We are in the process of petitioning the insurance company for more time. However, we have told them to do what they feel needs to be done and we will pay for it someway. And the answer to most every one's question is NO, the man at fault doesn't have enough insurance to cover much of this. After the bill at Shelby is covered for the emergency room we will have about 2/3 of his insurance left to apply to the rest of the bills. They arrived about 11:15 or so and began o get him in the sling for the lift. Someone else placed him in the sling today and he had a very tough time as he was in a lot of pain in his left leg. So much so that they had to put him back in the bed a reposition the sling. This time the person who placed him in it yesterday repositioned the sling so that there was no pressure on the knee of his left leg. He sipped on a banana milkshake until lunch and then didn't eat much lunch as he wasn't hungry. After lunch he had to go to rehab for his arm. They did a lot of work on it today. They determined that the scar tissue is already attaching itself to the muscle tissue and it is making it harder to move his arm. They are paying special attention to this and I am to work on it in the room so that we can get that softened up. After OT he was ready to go back to bed. He kept expressing how painful his left knee was. Both of the Physical Therapists did some research and it appears that his left fibula is broken and has been since he was at CMC but no one shared that with any of us. Now mind you we have used that leg to turn in him for many different reasons, they drove the rod through that leg just below the knee (where it is broken) for the traction for his hip and they never put this info on the discharge papers for the nursing center. The Physical Therapist came back to say not only was it broken but it was shattered. So this may mean more surgery. They placed an immobilizer on that knee. After it was on for about an hour they came back in to check it. Amazingly the swelling had gone down so much in that leg that the straps were loose. The Physical Therapist explained that it had relieved the pressure so that decreased the swelling. Don had several visitors from our school this afternoon and was very glad to see them. He ate a hamburger for supper that Donnie Lee brought him and some banana pudding. Kristi came when she got off work and is with him while I am updating the blog.