Stryker Brigade News

They had again gotten Travis up in a borrowed chair and he and Dorothy were outside on the atrium patio. We stayed outside for awhile talking, then went inside to the day room.

We entertained Travis for awhile picking out (very poorly) remembered notes on the piano in the day room, then he gave us instructions on playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Travis and I sat and talked while watching Dorothy, Samantha (my daughter) and Tyler (my son) playing pool, again rather poorly. *Laugh* at least we’re all consistent!

Travis and I were going to go back out to the atrium patio again for a little while and leave Dorothy and the kids playing pool, but everyone ended up tromping outside together. I have to give him credit, he showed bravery in the face of danger, meaning my figuring out how to drive his chair for him, and never flinched. I managed to get him driven out and through the doorway of the day room without crashing in to anything on the first attempt though, so all went well!

Travis is currently borrowing a motorized chair from the facility, is has a right arm wrist control unit that he can lay his left hand in to, and of course hope is that he’ll eventually be able to drive it on his own. He said he’s figured out how to make it go backwards and do a left hand turn by moving his shoulder a bit.

They like to get him back to bed before shift change and start hunting for him around 6’ish, so we headed back to the room around that time.

I go the bags I brought with unpacked and right away he wanted a cookie, so Dorothy helped him eat the cookie while I was putting the other stuff away.

Now down to some of the nitty gritty stuff:

Travis has a meeting tomorrow with his PAV representative/counselor (PAV = Paralyzed American Veterans), he also has a meeting with his social worker. He’s still currently listed as active duty and they will be discussing his care plan, goals and discharge plan tomorrow from what I understood.

They are looking at a tentative discharge date from the hospital of February – March, however Travis has set his own goal of February 16th for the moment.

No one from DS3 has been to see him yet, so I told him I’d call them tomorrow for him to check the status on that. It’s possible that they have not done a medical board on him yet, which would explain why he’s not been contacted by his SFA. However, we may have a chance of securing ITO’s for his mom to be flown up for visits through their office, which is why I’ll be calling them tomorrow. DS3 normally does not come in to the food chain until after a soldier has been found to fall below medical retention standards by way of the medical board. DS3 provides comprehensive current and after care programs, so the earlier we can get them involved, the more advocating we’ll have on his behalf hopefully.

I was finally able to pin down the charge nurse as well. On the DVD issue, a personal DVD player will not interface with the setup they have in the hospital, he said that 9 times out of 10, their electrical system fries them the first time they are turned on. He did say that a personal DVD player is acceptable. I talked to him about what Travis had said to me about not wanting to bother the nursing staff further by having to ask them in to the room to switch out movies and he said he’d be sure to talk to Travis and make it clear that it was no problem or burden for them. Mike is his PM charge nurse and a very competent and compassionate man from what I can tell, he reminds me a bit of Santa Claus in the looks department.

Mike will also be following up on Travis’s complaints of problems sleeping due to pain. He said that he was not made personally aware of those. I had him check to make sure my business card was still in Travis’s chart and made it clear to him that day or night, he can call if Travis needs anything.

That’s about it for this visit, the kids and I left about 1830 as they have school in the morning. I’m working on arranging my schedule so I can get down there next Sunday and will update with the next visit.

Travis did say to tell everyone “HI!!!”, I let him know about the comments left on the Stryker News site when ever we send in an update about him and it always makes him smile.

Best regards,

Angel