Stryker Brigade News

While waiting, I wrote a one page description of what Scott was doing when he was hit and his duties and accomplishments in Iraq before that at the request of the God of Neurology, LTC Armanda. He wanted to properly introduce Scott at case reviews so I gave him the best introduction I could. I won't share it for now. I want to see how the doctors react to it. If it affects them hearing it like it affected me writing it, I'm on the right track.

Fun with Speech Pathology: We arrived in Room 12 as two female straight men, er, speech pathologists were about to begin their assessment. Scott appeared to be cooperative, but quickly began to have some sport with them. He did not do very well at first, being asked to point out the letter E on a chart with the letters A to F on it. He pointed to each letter and tried to say the letter aloud instead of pointing to the E, as instructed. (He makes odd vowel sounds like the material in the Henry Higgins speech lab in My Fair Lady.) He was asked to point to a series of simple drawings of objects and point out the bed, matches, etc. He was unable (or unwilling) to accomplish this task, appearing confused and bored at the same time. Every so often the pathologists would huddle and speak in low tones, then come up with some new way to present the same task. He was asked to blink and he did. One of them held up a cup (the ancient Melmac-type light green coffee cup that's been around the military and school cafeterias since Korea) and a bright red ball. Scott was asked to take the ball. He grabbed it at once and pretended to take a bite of it as if it were an apple. The pathologists were very happy at this until it looked like he was going to actually bite the ball. They became a bit alarmed until Scott handed it back to them. They asked him how the cup was used so Scott took the cup and, with pinky finger extended like he was at a ladies tea party, began to make sipping noises with the cup at his lips. A light then went off in the head of one of the speech pathologists. "You have a sense of humor, don't you Scott?" (His family's silent response was, "You think?")

The next task was to touch his nose. Scott immediately began to try to touch his nose by curling up his upper lip and then with his tongue. After a few moments of this clowning around (which the pathologists watched with utter fascination, trying to figure out how the wires got that crossed), he was told to touch his nose with his index finger. Scott grabbed the hand of one of the pathologists and was going to use her finger to touch his nose before she pulled away and told him to use his own finger to do it. He immediately raised his left index finger to his nose and then put his arm down. Field sobriety test passed, no doubt.

Scott was then asked a series of questions and told to answer the questions with a thumbs up for yes and a thumbs down for no. The first question: Are you a man?

Response: Very strong thumbs up with a grunt.

I said the grunt was part of the answer and not an attempt to speak. Scott nodded at this.

Next question: Am I a woman?

Response: A wavering thumb, held sideways, sort of like what one might see in an old Gladiator movie, up and down and up and down and then finally up. Of course we all knew what he was thinking about before he answered! (I think she blushed, too.)

This went on for a few more minutes and they tried to get Scott to make the motions with his mouth for words or parts of words without the sound. He made a "B" for ball once, but couldn't do it again.

With his lunch waiting behind them and a morning of being moved around for tests, he was losing patience fast and the pathologists noted this as well. One, who had met him two days previously, told him he was doing much better today and told him they would be back tomorrow for more. I hope they bring better material and a sense of humor.

After dinner, Scott could raise his right arm about halfway up and make like a piano player with the fingers. He was able to grip my hand weakly and I let him beat me in a quick arm-wrestling match. He's able to make gross movements with his right leg, but can't seem to wiggle his toes. I told him the only speech pathologist joke I know (it has a great punchline but is too involved to go into here) and he came as close to laughing as I've seen since August when we left Seattle during his R & R. That was a happier time, indeed.

At the end of the day, Scott had the pads off the side and back of his head and all the IV's (It seems like eight of them, plugged into a long clear plastic device) are running into a large tube connected to him just under his left clavicle (collar bone). He fell asleep about 7:30 p.m. We stuck around until about 9:15 p.m. and checked in on him to find him still asleep. (We left yesterday at the same time only to discover he awoke about 8:30 and was up to midnight! Drat!) Since he's been on salt water IV's (you can't give dextrose to the brain injured), apple juice and Hi-C boxes since he was shot, we're convinced he's just weak from hunger and will do better once he's able to get enough real food in him. He was asleep when we returned with a burger from Wendy's, but it's the 'fridge if he wakes up. His wife gave him a piece of that red rope candy and he ate it like it was the best food he'd ever tried.

Scott's slowly coming out of that skull as the swelling brain retreats back inside. The risk of vasospasm and the need to shove something up there to open arteries is decreasing quickly now. As the blood flow returns to normal, we may get more progress. We're using the "brown out" analogy here amongst ourselves to describe his situation. There's enough blood flow to keep the area alive, but not enough for it to work normally. Swelling may be a factor here as well. Only time will tell, but he certainly wants to get back to being himself as much as we do.

ST