Updates on David

Lots of good stuff going on this week.

Monday was the return visit to the sports medicine doctor to follow up on David’s foot and leg muscular and nerve pains. David has a list of exercises to loosen up his foot, together with a special night splint.

On Tuesday David returned to the therapy pool for a second evaluation and now has a weekly schedule. The sessions in the warm water with the therapist really helps his arm flexibility and ankle strengthening. I know it must really feel good since he hates being in the water normally!

Wednesday was David’s weekly exercise session which is also helping him to loosen up his arm. It also really helps to have someone else that is here on a schedule to make sure the exercise gets done.

Today was the fitting of the NEW leg brace. This one is graphite and much less irritating to his foot, since there is less of it surrounding his ankle. The design is flexible along the botton of the foot, then a single piece up the left side to the part that holds on to his shin and calf. It bends when he walks but keeps his ankle straight. It also fits a lot more easily in his shoe and can be put on in one action with the shoe, not a two part process. With his new velcro shoes we can work on him putting on his own shoes, or at least making it a lot easier for me to do it when he wants to get out of bed.

The old brace did its job, but was designed for less flexibility. David pretty much hated it. He is looking forward to tossing it off the Bixby bridge.

Our friend the massage student has been practicing on David a few times last week and that has been a wonderful addition to the therapy for his back, arms and legs. Probably more addicting than any medicine he is taking.

That’s the good news of the week. Next week we go to the new neurologist to see about his leg and arm and we are hopeful that he will be able to prescribe a stimulator for David’s arm and leg that will help him get things moving again soon.

Thanks for keeping in touch!

Drew

David is doing okay today, although it has been a long two weeks.

A couple of weeks ago we were getting ready to head to Chicago for the housewares show and everything seemed to be on schedule for our trip.

Unfortunately, we found out on Tuesday that week that my aunt Sally had passed away so we moved a few things around and drove to LA for the services on Thursday getting back in time for our flight to Chicago Friday morning.

I have been going over the sequence of events of those few days a hundred times to figure out what might have caused the seizure that David had on the plane to Chicago. As we were on approach to the airport David went blank and then started flopping around in his seat. The seizure was about the same as the seizure he had in Paris (frightening), lasted a minute or less and then took a few hours for him to ‘come out of it’. Thankfully there was a paramedic and some other doctors seated near us and they attended to David pretty quickly with oxygen, blood pressure, etc until we landed and the paramedics came on board to take David to the emergency room.

After a few hours of basic tests they released him and we headed back to the airport to get our luggage and then on to the hotel. Luckily we had planned an extra day for the Chicago celebration of St Patrick’s day so we spent Saturday resting in the hotel and a small dinner at the Irish Pub in the lobby. Yes, they really do die the river green in Chicago for St. Patrick’s day. I suppose it was just the ‘Luck of the Irish’ that it all turned out okay.

Our time at the show was a lot less than we had planned, since we were being really careful and the new medicine for seizures makes him more tired than normal. We did get to visit some suppliers that we don’t normally see during the year though and had some great meetings for the few days.

Luckily the trip home on Tuesday was uneventful and we got home to Monterey around 9pm without any problems,.

The last few days have been busy catching up. David is starting again at the therapy pool again, and is now getting exercise therapy once a week in addition. The doctor has adjusted his medicines to try to protect against the seizures without making him so sleepy and without all the other side affects from the medicines.

It’s was the one year anniversary of David’s stroke yesterday afternoon. As I write this it was one year ago that I got to the hospital to see him for the first time . Lets hope the next week is a good one.

Thanks for all your help and support.

Drew

Or, as David still quotes Kermit, time’s fun when you’re having flies.

No major progress, or issues since last month either thank goodness.

My schedule at work, and our time in the store covering for vacations and sick days have kept us more than busy, busy, busy. It’s tiring for David to be there all day, but he enjoys being involved as much as he can in the daily activity.

We’ve survived the rain and some vehicle issues too. The truck was sidelined with a brake issue and needed to be towed, so we were using David’s little car (no room for the wheelchair – or groceries) so we were limited to only going to the store (he has an extra wheelchair there) or places he could walk closely to. Then came the flat on David’s car (which luckily happened near enough to the airport last week as I was on the way there to meet David’s cousin Tim and Tim’s wife Janice who have been visiting us for the past week) which left us with no car at all!. His cousins had rented a car though and with some quick planning (and luckily some sunshine) we got both cars towed in and fixed so now we are back in business.

We’re planning for our trip to the Houseware show in Chicago next weekend, the show we were on our way to when David had his stroke last year. It will be a big event for David, seeing all our acquaintances and planning for the year to come. It will be more difficult this time since the planes from Monterey is a lot smaller, but each flight is only 2 hours so it should not be a problem.

We spent Sunday in the city (what a spectacular sunny day!) showing Tim and Janice the Golden Gate bridge, Chinatown, Lombard St, the Ferry Building and of course Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista Café.

As for David’s therapy program, he is starting again with a couple of hours a week of having someone come to the house to work through an exercise program on his leg and arm. Once he gets back in the therapy pool and on a schedule of therapeutic massage hopefully he will see more improvement.

We had dinner at the Monterey Cookhouse with Tim and Janice on our 17th anniversary Saturday. The champagne (French) was fantastic! Got it at some cute little store in Del Rey Oaks that sells wine and kitchen stuff….

Tonight he will be in the kitchen for the first time in a long time making his traditional fried chicken mashed potatoes for our guests, so I had better get in there and start helping him.

I will promise to update from Chicago on our experiences there!

Drew