Saturday's Update

Dad is getting settled in at St. Mary's Hospital. He is somewhat dehydrated so he has been put back on saline. The dietician was in and is changing his 12 hour night feed to a 10 hour night feed. He will still be getting the same amount of food, but will be off of the feed earlier in the morning in hopes of getting him to eat more breakfast. He is needing to get 25% of his calories by mouth throughout the day. His oral intake will be monitored closely and if he is not eating enough, he will be given a bolus feed once during the day. He is really needing calories in order to gain weight. He weighs around 36 pounds less than he did before the accident. And if you know my Dad, you will know that he didn't really have any weight to lose.

The physical therapist was in for one-half hour this morning and then she will be back in the afternoon for another half hour. She had Dad walk with the walker today. He wasn't able to walk very far because he is still exhausted from the trip over from Denver to Grand Junction.

The occupational therapist was in for one-half hour this morning and then will also be back in the afternoon for another half hour. Dad is having a lot of difficulty with his vision. Lyndi and Mom are going to see if there is any way to gets his eyes examined and get glasses for him. We feel it would help him immensely.

The speech therapist came in and was to be there for one hour, but only worked with Dad for a half hour as he was totally worn out by then. She will also come back in the afternoon. Dad is still having difficulty coming up with a lot of nouns.

Dad will have this amount of therapy six days a week. He is given a day of rest on Sunday.

For those of you that would like to send Dad a card, I have put the new mailing address on the right side of my blog.