Update #35

Today was another busy day for Ryan. He was doing a lot of "crunching" this past weekend. He kept lifting his head and shoulders off the pillow on his bed or the headrest of his chair. I can tell he just wants to jump out of bed and do something. :)

When I told the physical therapist this, she decided to work on getting his core muscles stronger. She had him sitting upright and had him try to control himself and hold his head upright. He did okay. He tends to overcompensate. So, if he is leaning forward and tries to sit up straight he pulls to hard with his back muscles and almost falls backwards. But, someone is always there to catch him.

She also worked with his legs a bit. I requested that she do more work with his left arm. She held the vibrating stimulus up to his left arm tried to get him to move it. The only real movement that he managed to do was curling his arm towards himself (like arm wrestling).

Occupational therapy also worked with his left arm. The were able to get a little of the same movement. They worked with Ryan on doing an exercise similar to a bench press with a three-pound bar. He was doing a great job pushing the bar up with his right arm. They had strapped his left arm to the other end of the bar. The therapist helped him push that side of the bar up.

The doctors backed Ryan off a drug that stimulates activity in his brain for the weekend. They did this because he was scheduled to have another EEG today and they wanted a "clean" reading. They will put him back on the drug tomorrow and do another EEG on Friday. This way they can tell if the drug is getting the desired response. If it isn't creating positive activity in his brain and helping him to recover, then they will stop it entirely. But, if it is producing the desired response, they will continue to use it.

Speech therapy completed the same assessment again that they had done on Friday. They wanted to see if he would be less responsive without the drug. But, Ryan still maintained the same high scores that he produced on Friday.

They used the touch-screen keyboard with him again. They had him spell his name and my name. He did a great job, but it was an effort. They mentioned getting him a more user-friendly keyboard. It sounds like that will happen in the near future.

The EEG went smoothly. The doctor still needs to do some "complex mathematical calculations" before he can read the results. But, he seemed positive about what he saw.

A vision specialist came to see Ryan again today. She spoke with me about Ryan's vision problems. Sometimes his eyes appear a little disconjugate or unsynchronized--meaning they are both not looking in the same direction. When this happens, Ryan can have double vision. When his eyes are working in harmony, he may still have blurred vision. He can track an object both vertically and horizontally. But, there are some breaks in his vision. So, as he is tracking an object his eyes will appear to jerk as if they are stuck. The specialist feels that all of this will get better in time. She feels this way because she has noticed a significant improvement from her assessment last week.

Ryan seemed a little restless this afternoon. He kept moving his right leg while sitting in his chair. So, I asked him if he wanted me to put some resistance on him. He indicated that he would. I asked him to kick his leg out and I pushed down on it. I did the same thing in "leg press" style. He has so much power in his right leg.

I did the same for his left leg. He couldn't kick it out, but he could definitely shove me with his left leg. He has some real strength in his left leg. I have no doubt that he will be walking (or running) in no time.

We also did some shoulder press movements on his right arm. He is getting stronger every day. Ryan is so motivated. He is determined to be active no matter what. If anyone is going to push the limits of recovery, it's him! :)