Lisa Today
March 8, 2006
Oro Valley, AZ
It's 7:00 PM Mountain Standard Tim. I'm Richard's father, Michael. Richard asked that I keep you current with Lisa's progress toward recovery.
I was asked two questions by a correspondent: Lisa age and when was Michael born. Lisa is 39-years old and a Mother by 26-days. Her first born son, Michael Gene arrived February 10, 2006. He was 9.1 OZ and 21” long. On Friday, Michael will celebrate being 1-month old with an extra ¼ ounce of Similac. Two things get his goat: hunger and baths. The rest of the time he’s in harmony with his universe. And it makes us laugh. What a guy!
Our conference with Dr. Stein (neurologist) and Ruffenach (internist) began promptly at Noon in the ICCU conference. The conference room, in case you are wondering is not a place where you would like to spend a lot of time, but the time there, for us, was well spent. You may recall this meeting was delayed, and today we learned why. The Docs had to have additional MRI pictures—beyond what was initially taken – in order to clarify and validate the extent of damage to certain parts of Lisa’s brain. You know; we wanted to know, but then again…we didn’t. Lisa is opening her eyes with increasing frequency, but Dr. Stein thinks she is unable to associate to what she may be seeing. Some of her activity is beyond his expectations. We learned her brain is working to restore function, and that is difficult work. Dr. Stein cautioned us to not press her to perform tasks, such as “open your hand” or move your foot, etc. Reason being, if she hears and understands the task request, and attempts to respond, it will overload her, and could delay the self-healing of her brain. Therefore the operative word is passive interaction in moderation. As an example, Carmen, her Mom, reads to her. The rest of us are giving her range-of-motion therapy three-times a day. We talk to Lisa and tell her about Maggie, her Sheltie, and the weather, and how good she looks, and that we love her and so on.
Sherry and I took the opportunity to visit Kindred Hospital—Tucson. It is an acute critical care, 51-bed hospital which includes an intensive care unit. This is where Lisa will soon be transferred. The hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation. This is the “gold standard” for a hospital’s rating. Sherry and I toured the facility. We found it to be well staffed, and maintained. The Intensive Care Unit has a patient to-nurse ratio of 2 to 1, all patients in the unit were monitored electronically (Heart Rate, Respiration, etc) by a technician whose only job was to monitor the monitors. The rooms, hallways, guest areas, cafeteria were exceptionally clean and free of odor. Guests of patients are encouraged to use the cafeteria, etc. I am convinced the quality of care that Lisa will receive at Kindred is the best available without qualification, and Sherry agrees. There is another facility in Tucson, which is actually closer to Richard’s home, but is lacks a Critical Care Unit, and was therefore ruled out. A cloud hanging over this is that Blue Cross Insurance is hassling Richard over the decision to use Kindred, but Richard is working to achieve what is best for Lisa. I expect Lisa will go to Kindred with Richard’s function as her advocate By-the-way, no one said this was easy! J
Lisa is scheduled to have the defibrillator implanted at 9:00 AM tomorrow. It will help protector her and I (if I had a vote) completely agree, but if Lisa ever finds out about all this poking, pushing, pumping that going on around her that she would be seriously looking for someone’s ass to kick!
Good Night Everyone!
Michael
wintory@galesburg.net
