Wednesday 26 OCT 2011 -Rehab Update

Supported by her therapist, Alexandria walks the halls of Pitt’s Pediatric Rehab Center nearly daily. She started only able to manage 8 steps and went to 80 the next day. She continues to need support on both sides to balance her and ease the impact of weight bearing, as her legs were pretty weak after her 3+ weeks of quasi sleep. She can sit up with help but gets irritated
and starts leaning back after only a short time. She can hold her head up pretty well and moves all limbs well except her right arm. Her range of motion in this arm remains impaired, same one in which she suffered the broken clavicle. We are requesting ortho support for this progress.

She has a fairly aggressive schedule from 0730 through around 330 with 1.) Occupational therapy to regain everyday motor skills including brushing teeth, dressing and eating, 2.) Physical Therapy to ambulate through standing, walking and walking up and down stairs and judging small slopes, 3.) Recreational Therapy to help regain social interaction skills and 4.) speech therapy to assess speech, focus, language, reading and memory. She will add in an hour a day of high school review beginning next week. A neuropsychologist comes by to assess her Post Traumatic Amnesia level every few days. Alex can recall a great deal, but it comes and goes.

To recap, in less than a week, she passed a swallow test and began to re-engage soft solid foods. She began to communicate verbally in whispers with a trach cap and has since had her trach removed (today). She is no longer hooked up to ANY monitors! Her lucidity comes and goes. She can be clear and on point suddenly and then “daydream” for awhile before responding again to a command or answering. Her answers take extra moments to process and she is still off on her days/nights, time of year, etc. She started returning to self hygiene intermittently and has a healthy appetite, often remembering past events through food. The other day, she was quiet and suddenly snapped, “Mom, mom, I have a craving, please I have a craving, I need stuffed crust pizza, please mom, I need stuffed crust pizza with mushrooms and sausage!”.  She has also asked for chicken nuggets, sushi and loves to drink juice. She can’t of course eat all those things she wants, but it shows her appetite for Alex’s favorites kicking in. She gets frustrated when she is not understood, is sometimes sad or scared and has shown no real laughter nor full self created smiles. Trust me, I’ve tried—but I know it will come!

In the last 24 hrs, she has expressed the strongest desire to shop. She begs me to at least take her to WalMart to look around for awhile. She also has desire to call family members, often after 2am. Eventually she asked her speech therapist to take her to McDonalds…LOL. Of course, she cannot yet go on an outing and I hate having to tell her this but she cannot always appropriately control all her movements nor can she walk alone so she cannot go on an outing just yet.

She works hard trying every day. Please keep praying for her, for her ongoing progress and her spirit, that she will maintain hope and strive toward her truest greatness.

I officially decided to withdraw from my classes this semester and hope to return for winter term. Ern is working hard and trying to visit Alex when he can. Nic is getting back on track with his school work and also helping around the house. Matt & Jasmine have been here for Alex every weekend and provide valued interaction with her toward her progress.