Back on "regular" food
Entry posted by avantgardener
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The ST finally put Larry back on regular food today. We've been giving him regular food for some time now, but she finally made it official. No more creamed spinach! Yahoo! Maybe now he will eat more. He's lost 30 pounds since 4/22, and although he certainly had them to spare (look who's talking - ahem!), that's a bit too fast.
He seemed in good spirits today, and he worked hard at all of his therapy sessions. He's definitely getting stronger on his "good" left side. The PT is trying to get him to be able to help more in transferring from bed to chair, using the transfer board, and today he did better than he's been able to do before. This will be a huge deal when he comes home - even after the weight loss Larry still weighs about 270 pounds, so it is no easy matter to move him. If he can get better at the transfer process that will mean that we can get to the point where I could move him myself, which I just can't do now. The PT is very good with Larry and is teaching him how to slowly inch along the board. He can't pivot at all, so that's a problem, but he's so much better than he was at first. I watch him and find myself using all kinds of body english trying to get him to move forward - it's like the invisible brake when you're teaching a teenager to drive! So funny.
The speech therapist told me yesterday that Larry's getting better at identifying and pointing to the pictures that she uses in their therapy. Today I brought a National Geographic and tried getting him to point to those pictures, thinking that maybe that would be easier for him than the black and white line drawings that the ST uses. One of his specialties as a physical anthropologist/geneticist is primates, and they had a page with maybe 12 different kinds of monkeys. When I asked him to point to the bonobo, or the capuchin, or the marmoset he was definitely able to do that. I'll be the PT couldn't!! So maybe he is better with pictures that are closer to what something really looks like than he is with line drawings that are more abstract. It was pretty interesting, anyway.
As for me, a friend who has been in the military for a long time offered to go to the VA with me to see about what I need to do to get Larry's service records; that's the first step in finding out whether or not he's eligible for any benefits. He was able to help me get the right form and draft a cover letter to send it in. A huge relief, because I have been putting this off for several weeks. He really knows the system, and I'm sure saved me hours of chasing my tail trying to figure it all out. So, I can cross that off my list and feel as though I accomplished something.
A good day for both of us. I'm really anxious for Larry to come home, but glad that he's getting therapy that is helping him. The next few weeks will pass, and then he'll be home and we'll have to deal with that change too. For someone who was a pretty sedate homebody type, this has been quite a month!!
-Janine
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