Saturday, October 3, 2009

October 3

Jeremy slept in this morning until 10 at which time physical therapy came and took him for stretching and a workout. He was sitting at the edge of the mat table. Stretched to the right and to the left, then laid on his stomach propped up on his elbows. That was a new and interesting experience for Jeremy. I'm not sure he really liked it. He'll thank them later I'm sure.

Then at 11 AM, the speech therapist came and took him back to his room for about 45 - 60 minutes of all sorts of questions. They have a device that she gave Jeremy that says "Yes", "No", "I'm thirsty", "I'm hungry", and about 8 other things Jeremy may need. You could say "Jeremy what do you want or need?" He can press the "I'm thirsty" button. Or you could ask "Jeremy are you hungry?" and he can press the "Yes" button. It's kind of cool. Sometimes you can carry on a pretty good conversation with him. The therapist asked him all kinds of questions from "Was my shirt white?" (It was not) to "Is the sky blue?". I think he got about 80% of the questions right.

Then she tried some writing skills. She started with his name. He did it. It is posted on his wall in his room!!! He even did the J in cursive. That is not what they practiced before. She accused him of getting fancy, but I realized that that is the way Jeremy signs his name. She was impressed - we were thrilled.

Another accomplishment today was that he licked his lips!! He is also back to sucking through a straw again. Doesn't sound like much, but remember that someone told me that when you can stick out your tongue it means that all the cranial nerves are in tact.

Then at noon he had a chance to stop and eat. The poor nurse kept coming in to find out when she could give him his meds. OH and on that note - he is taking his meds by mouth now. Usually with pudding or something like that. He is not quite to the swallowing it with water part yet. They would like to take out the feeding tube that he has in his stomach. He still gets water through it. Since he can only swallow once at a time, it's hard for him to get enough water by mouth. We are working on that also.

Thank you for your prayers and support!!

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