Stryker Brigade News

We went to Speech Therapy first and I got a chance to see what Scott has been doing there. He was shown a Powerpoint slide show with words. The task was to tell if the item described by the word was an article of clothing or not. He only missed two on this task. The next task was to state if a particular word began with the letter S. He got all the words correct that had a pure S sound, but missed most of those with an Sh sound as in Show. Overall, he was at 86% and the therapist explained that it was supposed to be hard or no work was being done. He made a few more of the "computer" cards with words for Scott to practice on and then we left.

The next stop was Occupational Therapy. On the way there, we learned that Scott had a 9 a.m. PT appointment, but we got that rescheduled to 3 p.m. The task for OT today was to locate items in the kitchen to be used for Scott's meal preparation. Also, he had to demonstrate that he could safely operate the electric range. Scott looked up the market and prepared a map there from the VA using Mapquest. He finished up with some Solitaire.

After OT was over, we went back to his room for lunch and a nap. One of the doctors from Surgery came in half-way through the nap and looked at the wound. She said a "dime-sized" piece of metal was removed along with the encapsulation. She stated there was some fluid accumulation around the encapsulation and this was cleared up. Scott promptly went back to sleep.

A little before 3 p.m., I woke him for Physical Therapy. We got there and he started with the usual stretches. This was followed by some electrical stimulation of the lower right leg in order to get the muscles to contract properly when Scott tried to get them to do so. He next went to the treadmill without the orthotic device on his right leg. I could tell his fatigue was affecting his performance, but he still pressed on. The PT said he was exhibiting a "steppage gait" meaning he raised his right leg a little more than he needed to. However, he did not catch his right foot on the treadmill, a previous concern. She explained she would like to have Scott only wear the orthotic for prolonged walking to help him build the leg back up in the hopes it will recover enough. If it does not, he can always go back to the device. The final activity for today was an ankle-strengthing and balancing exercise. He seemed to do fine with this.

After PT, we went to Scott's room, gathered up his laundry and a change of clothes for tomorrow. We walked out to the parking lot and I drove him over to the Fisher House. Scott walked up the stairs to Tiffany's room just fine. I delivered him to Tiffany and told him to get some sleep. Alyson was just waking up, but still had a temperature. We made plans to take her back to the hospital for the follow up tomorrow after dropping Scott and Julie off at the VA.

I drove back to the hotel. It felt weird to drive a car again. I haven't driven anywhere in about a month. But, it's like riding a bike, you don't forget how once you fall off. Or something like that.

ST