Day 143 – Grayson’s Journey

Dear family and friends

Grayson, his roommates and their residential assistants (RA's) had a bit of unexpected excitement this evening. It appears that a swarm of bees decided to make a visit to a vent in their unit. As a result, they had quite an impressive number of "friends" joining them this evening – the buzzing kind. Fortunately there was a vacant unit in the complex, and everyone grabbed what they needed for the evening and morning, and moved temporarily into the empty unit. Tomorrow we expect that the bees will be "encouraged" to move out, and everything should be back to normal.

The excitement sort of threw off the normal chore plan tonight, so they ate dinner (Chinese food was ordered and delivered), then hung out at the rec center after dinner. Grayson had completed his therapeutic home program (THP) prior to the bee invasion.

I promised I would share some details about Grayson from the patient conference on Tuesday. The first area I will share is physical therapy – probably the area of his greatest recovery to date. Grayson has increased his strength, and on a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is normal, Grayson scored a 4 in most of the strength areas. In aerobic endurance, he was able to go 9 minutes and 15 seconds on the treadmill, with the final 15 seconds being an aggressive stage 4. His balance has improved significantly. His coordination continues to improve, but he is still quite challenged in this area. An example of the deficit here is rapid heel and toe taps. Grayson just can't tap his toe then tap his heel for a sustained period. In spite of this, overall his physical strength and capability continue to show solid gains.

Grayson's weight is down to 193 pounds – still within the 190 +/- 10 pound ideal for his height, but still concerning. The nursing staff is starting to look at supplements to halt further reduction, as this represents the loss of another 7 pounds since the last reporting period. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this could have something to do with his lack of taste and smell impacting his appetite. Given that he was at 248 pounds on November 16^th, his weight loss has been significant. Fortunately, he is still in the healthy range.

That is enough for tonight. I'll share more from the patient conference tomorrow.

Pax!

Brant