DAY 234 & 235

You have to take the good with the bad...today we had some bad, but all is well now. Yesterday we had the good, and it was really good. In his OT re-evaluation, he made drastic improvements. For example, in one of the tests there is a sheet of paper with 10 rows and 10 columns of #'s 0-9. Rick has to scan each row and cross out the 2's. On his first try a month ago, he found 15 out of 60 2's and it took him 10 minutes to do it...and he was exhausted after that. Yesterday, he found 55 out of 60 in under 3 minutes! He was also given pictures of a clock and a flower and had to draw them exactly as he saw them. The first time he barely attempted anything. This time he drew the circle for the clock, #'d it, and drew the hands. On the flower he drew everything and even made sure to count how many petals there were so that he drew the exact same thing. His dexterity in both right and left hand have improved greatly. In his last 4 speech sessions he has had 100% voicing.

Then, today rolled around. It started out pretty good, but by noon I thought that Rick was pretty wiped out...but probably just his normal "wiped out by Thursday" kind of wiped out. He laid down and napped after lunch and when I got him up @ 2:00 he started throwing up. So, he laid back down from 2-3 but said he would try to finish the day...and he did, nothing outstanding, but he pushed through it. Then, we sat down for supper, he was eating good, and interacting. His Aunt Chyral called and he talked on the phone loud enough for her to hear him...she said that was the best Valentine's present she could get. About 5 minutes later, a funny look came across his face...a look I had seen before. I said, "He's going to have a seizure". The techs flew into action, and we were able to get his fork out of his hand and the food out of his mouth before it got too bad. They called 911 and the ambulance was here in 5 minutes. The seizure only lasted 45 seconds, resolved itself, and wasn't near as bad as the one he had 2 months ago. His vitals signs and oxygen saturation remained good. He was transported to UMC for a catscan and bloodwork. They both came back normal, and other than being exhausted, he is fine. We got back to TLC at 9:30 and a tech will stay in the room with him the rest of the night...the chances of a 2nd seizure happening are rare, but I asked if they could have someone sit with him anyway and they didn't hesitate. I remember after the last seizure Rick wasn't as tight as he had been before, so I'm praying for something good like that to come of this.

Keep praying!

Love,
Crystal