Friday, February 25, 2005

ROK STAR

As you will see in the following photos, man oh man is Mom a ROK STAR. Being Mom, she decided to opt out of the adjustment phase and go directly to the kicking butt phase. Not that this is something that can continue indefinitely. Spikes and plateaus frame the landscape but having such a spike now should dramatically improve her quality of life in the meantime.

Yesterday when I got in, the first thing I noticed was that Mom's trach was capped off. Yes, I mean capped off. She decided to skip the Passy-Muir and go directly to no help breathing. She did well with that all day-no fatigue, no difficulty breathing, able to continue to cough stuff up. If she can maintain this, it is likely that the trach will be pulled soon. A huge improvement in her comfort level as you can imagine.

Mom did an excellent job feeding herself and ate over half her food at each meal. Again, a big deal. We had discussed beforehand the importance of this to get the nasogastric tube out. Goal-oriented person that she is, Mom took right to the task and really impressed her nurses. Should this persist, it is likely the feeding tube will be out soon.

Regarding physical mobility, Mom was able to stand for about 12 minutes yesterday in her first therapy session. Five minutes the first time and seven the second. She wanted to stop at five the second time but hung in an additional two minutes after I explained why it was important. And, in contrast to the previous day, Mom did a great job with standing up straight-boobs out, yoga tall, pilates core activated. Boo yah. Go Mom! She is also doing a heck of a lot better with transfers from the chair to the bed and vice versa and with dressing herself.

Such a superstar!

jacqui

1 Comments:

Blogger charlotte said...

it is so wonderful to see mrs. schneller up and about!!! tonight is "carmina"!!! we'll be thinking of her!!
charlotte

3:44 PM  

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