20th May: Three months since Mike's accident

It is hard to believe that the three month mark is here. I look back to our lives pre 20th February and it all looks so far away, like a vaguely familiar movie.. It is also amazing to realise how far Mike has come since that dreadful day. the support of friends, family, friends of friends and total strangers has been so vital to Mike and all of us.

We had a celebratory meal of takeaways around Mike's bed tonight, and the anniversary made me think about progress to date:

His walking is coming along okay. Today Sue the physio got Mike walking with his arms stretched out and resting on her shoulders. This seemed to keep him more stabel than on the walking frame. The two of them looked like a couple of rather slow and stiff tango dancers. He will get there with the walking.

He is eating pretty well now and we're doing just fine on the weight gain. Apparently Mike's gained 2.8kg in a week, which is pretty impressive. It makes me realise how eating too much puts on weight! Duhhhh. For skinny Mike it means he is able to take in plenty enough food despite coming off the drip.

Mike has got a lot better at monitoring his tiredness. He's not good at judging when he is tired, but he does have his head around having to store up energy for the therapy activity or visitors and then resting to recover. We think we're not far off him being able to come out for a car ride and that would be a wonderful step forward.

His talking is fine as long as he is not tired. His voice is still hoarse, but that will improve apparently. The therapists are testing his cognitive ability and so on and I guess we will get an up-date at the family meeting next week.

Mike is having a few problems with double vision, but once again this is common and should disappear as he recovers. At the moment it affects his reading and anything else that requires his eyes to focus.

So thanks to everyone

Lee

May 18th: Quiet day for Mike

A bit quieter couple of days for Mike. Probably the main event was Bryce getting back from ten days in the US. There is a scurry of testing happening, so we presume this is to meet the deadline of our next family meeting on Wednesday next week. I look at some of the tests and wonder how us non-brain injured people would score. Some tests are cognitive and earlier this week there was one called Behavioural Recall which seemed to relate more to practical recall relevant to aspects of every day life - so skills such as remembering names, remembering to ask a question during an appointment, remembering where you put something and so on.

Mike's walking is gradually getting more stable. I presume once he is more steady he will be able to practise on his own and make more rapid progress. I gather that at the moment there are quite a range of skills the therapists would like to work on, but they have to just focus Mike's small amounts of energy on the highest priorities.

Regards to all

Lee

May 16th: Onward and outward

Mike is rather like Hansel in the witches house in Hansel and Gretel. Each day he pokes a skinny finger out and we all try to fatten him up. Must have been a record today: Three regular meals, about five high fat and protein drinks, I took a muffin out, Tracy took a baked kumara to heat up and Cousin David really hit the spot with Burger King!

Mike's walking continues to strengthen. He walked from his room to the day room with no walking frame, just some stabilising hands from the physios and me trotting along behind with a chair for him to rest on half way. So we were really pleased with that. The balance takes a great effort and at the end of that walk he was exhausted.

Regards

Lee