![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Signal boosting again, this time from Making Light.
Velma has the main news: "Soren's been accepted to NYU-Rusk! That's the brain rehab place we were hoping he'd get into! (I got the call from the Rusk therapist who'd seen him a couple of days ago, then I called Elise to make sure I wasn't dreaming.)
They're finishing up the paperwork now. I'm not sure when he'll be transferred; it might be as early as tomorrow, or over the weekend.
My bosses are telling me not to hyperventilate."
And![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elisem reports on most of a day spent with Soren at the hospital:
OK, here's my report from the Scraps' Palace of Recuperation and Fun:
I went in today in the mid-late morning, joining Velma in Scraps' room. It was really, really, REALLY good to see both of them. I hung out there until, oh, not quite six p.m. I guess it was. Many, many things happened today, some of which Velma has filled people in on already, so I'll just tell a few of the others.
Scraps has a rather limited set of words in his magnetic poetry set just now, if you know what I mean. I'm told that this is fairly common after a significant brain injury, actually, and that things improve as more connections are made and vocabulary is broadened. Anyhow, the words he's definitely got in several fonts and sizes at the moment are"time," "yes," "no," and "whatever." He's also got a good supply of "Yes, but..." and a few "No, but..."s. According to one of the nurses, he was using "time" for everything: "time" means lower the bed, "time" means raise the bed, "time" means bring me some juice, and so on. However, he was also definitely making some more complicated phrases at least part of the time. He did tell Velma that time was adjectival; later on, he told me that time is an asterisk. I think he's still looking for the right word(s) there, but he's working on it.
A couple of big things today: he said my name! This was a big deal, because finding names and nouns can be particularly hard after a stroke. He also said Patrick's name, very clearly and with great effort, during a discussion where this was a very pertinent utterance. (He looked a bit triumphant when he managed that one.) And later on inthe day, after someone mentioned Vicki, he came out with "PffVICKI!" (Fand v are a little tricky, as he hasn't got all that much control over his lips and tongue sometimes. I think the plosive p was a way to getit started. It worked, too.) [your humble Western Union key operator is pleased]
I pushed him a little on communication, too. He'd been saying "yes" for everything, and I'd been told that it's important to ask questions that sort of fork the subject, to determine for sure how much comprehension there is. So when he waved at the light, people had been saying, "Do you want the light off?" and he'd say "yes," and they'd turn it off. I wasn't sure whether he really meant that, and it seemed worth trying to get more verbalization, so the next time he did that (the lights kept getting turned back on every time somebody came in to draw blood or change sheets or do anything), I said, "Do you want the light off?" and he said, "Yes." I said, "Do you want the light on?" and he said, just as decisively, "Yes." I said, "Ooookay, do you want the light yes-on, or do you want the light yes-off?" He made this exasperated face at me, and I said, "I know, honey, I ask all the difficult questions," and I waited.... and he carefully rounded his mouth and said "Off!" So I said, "OK, then, off it is!" and I turned the light off. He let out a huge happy sigh of relief and said, "Yes!" We did that three times over the course of the afternoon, and he said "Off" each time, after a little effort. (OK, the last time he said, "on... OFF!" which was sort of like he got the pair, but the wrong one came out, but then he corrected it emphatically. Which seemed like it counted, you know?) Anyhow, I think it was OK to try these things, and he definitely did them, and I told Velma about them before I left. So he's working on more words and being able to use them appropriately --which will be good, because I think "yes," "no," and "time" will deserve a little vacation, given their current workload.
At one point, after he'd been saying, "Time, time, time, time!" over and over, I said, "Dude, after you get out of here, you so have to start a weblog called 'Time.'" He laughed a little at that one.
Later on, he was saying "time, time, time," again, and I said, "The only thing I am sure about is that you are NOT requesting that we play you 'Time in a Bottle.'" He rolled his eyes and said, "No," and chuckled. Then I told him a story about how when I was in high school, we had a dance marathon to raise money for something, and there had been a television crew filming us. Something kept going wrong with the lights or cameras, so they played the song over and over, I told him. "They played 'Time in a Bottle,' like, forty-seven times! And even if you liked the song when you started out, man, forty-seven times of it would cure you of that."
At this point, Scraps had been holding my hand; he squeezed it, looked up, and said in this very clear and perfectly timed comedy voice, "Forty-six?"
It was hilarious, and a perfectly Scraps joke.
He's still having trouble with memory; he needs to be reassured that he hasn't been in the hospital forever or for years (both of those were things he asked me today), and that he is making progress, and that yes, time was doing weird things, but that he's getting better. But he's clearly himself, and he's having moments -- no, more than moments, stretches of time -- of lucidity and clarity in comprehension, even if he can't get the words out that he wants. It's a pretty damned severe brain injury, but I believe that he's got a lot of things going for him, and that with good care and good work, he's going to amaze us.
He needed to know how long he had been asleep when he napped today-- finding out it was twenty minutes instead of several days was reassuring. And there's stuff about time that he keeps trying to tell us, and mostly it seems to boil down to "time is really really weird right now, and it was even weirder before." He told me, "Two days…no time," and "time went away," and later he said, "Five days... of...severed hours," after the two days, and he seemed to be indicating that now he's at least got a sense of time actually passing. He keeps saying, "Time... wow.
Anyhow, that's the report for today. I was really REALLY glad to see him, and I told him that everybody said hi. He sort of snorted -- we had just been telling him that many people sent their love and were thinking of him, and he was sort of all "oh, pshaw!" about it -- but then he raised his hand and waved it a little and said, "hi!"
So, you guys, he says hi.
[transcribed post ends]
Velma has the main news: "Soren's been accepted to NYU-Rusk! That's the brain rehab place we were hoping he'd get into! (I got the call from the Rusk therapist who'd seen him a couple of days ago, then I called Elise to make sure I wasn't dreaming.)
They're finishing up the paperwork now. I'm not sure when he'll be transferred; it might be as early as tomorrow, or over the weekend.
My bosses are telling me not to hyperventilate."
And
elisem reports on most of a day spent with Soren at the hospital:OK, here's my report from the Scraps' Palace of Recuperation and Fun:
I went in today in the mid-late morning, joining Velma in Scraps' room. It was really, really, REALLY good to see both of them. I hung out there until, oh, not quite six p.m. I guess it was. Many, many things happened today, some of which Velma has filled people in on already, so I'll just tell a few of the others.
Scraps has a rather limited set of words in his magnetic poetry set just now, if you know what I mean. I'm told that this is fairly common after a significant brain injury, actually, and that things improve as more connections are made and vocabulary is broadened. Anyhow, the words he's definitely got in several fonts and sizes at the moment are"time," "yes," "no," and "whatever." He's also got a good supply of "Yes, but..." and a few "No, but..."s. According to one of the nurses, he was using "time" for everything: "time" means lower the bed, "time" means raise the bed, "time" means bring me some juice, and so on. However, he was also definitely making some more complicated phrases at least part of the time. He did tell Velma that time was adjectival; later on, he told me that time is an asterisk. I think he's still looking for the right word(s) there, but he's working on it.
A couple of big things today: he said my name! This was a big deal, because finding names and nouns can be particularly hard after a stroke. He also said Patrick's name, very clearly and with great effort, during a discussion where this was a very pertinent utterance. (He looked a bit triumphant when he managed that one.) And later on inthe day, after someone mentioned Vicki, he came out with "PffVICKI!" (Fand v are a little tricky, as he hasn't got all that much control over his lips and tongue sometimes. I think the plosive p was a way to getit started. It worked, too.) [your humble Western Union key operator is pleased]
I pushed him a little on communication, too. He'd been saying "yes" for everything, and I'd been told that it's important to ask questions that sort of fork the subject, to determine for sure how much comprehension there is. So when he waved at the light, people had been saying, "Do you want the light off?" and he'd say "yes," and they'd turn it off. I wasn't sure whether he really meant that, and it seemed worth trying to get more verbalization, so the next time he did that (the lights kept getting turned back on every time somebody came in to draw blood or change sheets or do anything), I said, "Do you want the light off?" and he said, "Yes." I said, "Do you want the light on?" and he said, just as decisively, "Yes." I said, "Ooookay, do you want the light yes-on, or do you want the light yes-off?" He made this exasperated face at me, and I said, "I know, honey, I ask all the difficult questions," and I waited.... and he carefully rounded his mouth and said "Off!" So I said, "OK, then, off it is!" and I turned the light off. He let out a huge happy sigh of relief and said, "Yes!" We did that three times over the course of the afternoon, and he said "Off" each time, after a little effort. (OK, the last time he said, "on... OFF!" which was sort of like he got the pair, but the wrong one came out, but then he corrected it emphatically. Which seemed like it counted, you know?) Anyhow, I think it was OK to try these things, and he definitely did them, and I told Velma about them before I left. So he's working on more words and being able to use them appropriately --which will be good, because I think "yes," "no," and "time" will deserve a little vacation, given their current workload.
At one point, after he'd been saying, "Time, time, time, time!" over and over, I said, "Dude, after you get out of here, you so have to start a weblog called 'Time.'" He laughed a little at that one.
Later on, he was saying "time, time, time," again, and I said, "The only thing I am sure about is that you are NOT requesting that we play you 'Time in a Bottle.'" He rolled his eyes and said, "No," and chuckled. Then I told him a story about how when I was in high school, we had a dance marathon to raise money for something, and there had been a television crew filming us. Something kept going wrong with the lights or cameras, so they played the song over and over, I told him. "They played 'Time in a Bottle,' like, forty-seven times! And even if you liked the song when you started out, man, forty-seven times of it would cure you of that."
At this point, Scraps had been holding my hand; he squeezed it, looked up, and said in this very clear and perfectly timed comedy voice, "Forty-six?"
It was hilarious, and a perfectly Scraps joke.
He's still having trouble with memory; he needs to be reassured that he hasn't been in the hospital forever or for years (both of those were things he asked me today), and that he is making progress, and that yes, time was doing weird things, but that he's getting better. But he's clearly himself, and he's having moments -- no, more than moments, stretches of time -- of lucidity and clarity in comprehension, even if he can't get the words out that he wants. It's a pretty damned severe brain injury, but I believe that he's got a lot of things going for him, and that with good care and good work, he's going to amaze us.
He needed to know how long he had been asleep when he napped today-- finding out it was twenty minutes instead of several days was reassuring. And there's stuff about time that he keeps trying to tell us, and mostly it seems to boil down to "time is really really weird right now, and it was even weirder before." He told me, "Two days…no time," and "time went away," and later he said, "Five days... of...severed hours," after the two days, and he seemed to be indicating that now he's at least got a sense of time actually passing. He keeps saying, "Time... wow.
Anyhow, that's the report for today. I was really REALLY glad to see him, and I told him that everybody said hi. He sort of snorted -- we had just been telling him that many people sent their love and were thinking of him, and he was sort of all "oh, pshaw!" about it -- but then he raised his hand and waved it a little and said, "hi!"
So, you guys, he says hi.
[transcribed post ends]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
The distortion of time isn't limited to stroke patients. I know someone who had the same thing happen after gall bladder surgery.
I'll keep thinking of him, and metaphorically crossing my fingers. I'm counting on you to tell us if we need to slip them a few bucks, or something.
From:
Since you asked
From:
Re: Since you asked
From:
Re: Since you asked
From:
Re: Since you asked
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
But dang, I'm so glad to hear that the galoot is doing better, and pulling out of the abyss. Crying happy.