December 27, 2018
Day 2 of physical therapy. It was still rough, but already better than yesterday. She was slightly more cooperative. Not nearly an ideal patient, but she didn't totally protest the entire session. They worked with her for about 40 minutes today. They start with just moving her arms and legs all around, and then get her up and balanced. Once there, they try to get her to hold things, reach for things, lift her arms, push back against them, etc. At this point she's really only trying to yank her hand away, but they're happy with that. She's reaching a bit with her right arm. She's (very weakly) trying to balance herself with her left arm, so that's at least something. No fine motor control or anything, but it's not completely limp. She tried to lift her right arm to reach for Reed, which was her best progress today. She got another long hug, which helped a lot, and again right to sleep once they laid her down. The picture today summarizes the therapy session nicely.
About an hour after therapy another gigantic ball of mucus got coughed up. Just as gross, but needed. They're still fighting her formula to find a concoction / amount / schedule that agrees with her. They believe her constipation (caused mostly by the meds) is a large contributing factor to the vomiting. So they're really trying to balance everything out. I hate thinking about her having to just lay there through enema cramps, gigantic poops, gagging on massive amounts of snot, and throwing up in her mouth. Ugh. She has to be so uncomfortable.
But in really great news, Reed captured a sweet video! We haven't gotten much out of her "mentally" since her stroke. Just minimal eye contact and hand squeezes. But today she started doing her "family roll call" again! Her roll call, as we call it, comes from the toddler Finger Family song. It's some silly song with a video on YouTube that she's watched a hundred times over the past year. Daddy finger is thumb, then mommy finger is pointer, then sister finger, brother finger, and baby finger is the pinky. She knows them all, but regularly only did Daddy, Mommy, and Baby (for Gabriel). So she did that today and it's just the best thing ever!
(YouTube link for short video: https://youtu.be/KZMk6-5lrF8)
So she's still in there, even after the stroke. We just need her body to get strong and this halo to get off her head, and we might start to see larger glimpses of our sweet little girl =)
