Wednesday (late Tuesday night), March 26 - Midnight
corrected*

Subject: Report

Our conference on Friday with the Doctor and team of therapists went well. We emerged from it encouraged and hopeful!
It is too soon for the doctor to give us a prognosis. He did however say Dwight will be here at Craig at least until the end of May. Upon discharge he thinks Dwight will be free of the trach, free of the feeding tube, eating, talking, and have control of his bodily functions. He has no reason to not to believe Dwight will do very well!

Dwight still has fluid around his lungs - which they will monitor with weekly chest xrays -one of which he had yesterday. There is no fluid around the colon, however there is still swelling as a result of the abdominal cavity infection. There remains an old blood clot in the left arm (the one in the right has dissovled) yet the doctor believes it will dissolve and take care of itself and is not at all worried that it will cause problems. The clots are a result of so many IVs ....

The doctor began Dwight on Simatrill (sp?) ... a medication to stimulate the brain - he compared it to jumper cables for a car. He cannot be as agressive with these type meds for the brain as he would like to be or should be due to the stomach problems ..... (caused by the negligence of Mediplex) He has him on sleep meds in order to get his sleep patterns regulated. He is also on a med Ambien to help with the adgitation - normal with recovery of this type of brain injury.

The therapists will be agressive with his therapy classes. Speech is working on getting him to swallow on command which would then allow us to change the current trach to a Jackson trach, which is a metal one without a cuff that would allow swallowing. Which this would result in eating via mouth and thus rid him of both the feeding tube and the trech. He has a very strong cough which they feel will keep his airways adequately cleared. The physical therpist is encouraged by the amount of improvement in such a short time. Yet upon discharge there is a possiblity he will be in a wheelchair - more for outings (church, shopping, etc) than in the house. - thus we will need to get our house wheelchair accessible....

His lack of movement in his right arm may not be brain related at all. He has a sublexation (sp?) - where the arm has dislocated from the shoulder socket .... this may be due to a torn rotator OR damaged nerves.......which the later is irreversible and would cause a life long deficiency in that arm. They will do an EMG this week which is a test where they shock the nerves and muscles to determine the extent of the damage. When he does begin to use it, if he does, he will have shakeyness and difficult in writing.

This is a long slow process .... and treatment of the brain is an art. They reminded us repeatedly that this is a marathon and NOT a sprint. They feel in 9 months he will have regained most of the progress he will make. Yet it will take up to two years to realize the full effect this brain injury has had on his function in life. This is because it may take up to two years to realize the full scope of limitations he has. At the end of the two years he will have achieved the Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI).

We will have another family conference in four weeks. The prayers requests from this conference are (1) he will swallow on command (he does it spontaneously) and (2) There is NO nerve damage to the [right]* shoulder.

The afternoon of this family conference we rec'd a card from one of his former co-workers at The Wilds of the Rockies ... she had penned in this verse >> "...so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power". I Cor. 2:5 (NIV)

Thanx once again for ALL your prayers. It is what is keeping us going!! We still trust God for a FULL recovery!!

May God find us faithful .... Joe, Joan, Denise and Dwight

* Joan sent out a correction on Wednesday morning.