Day 28 - Wednesday January 11, 2012

It's been four weeks since the accident.  So much has happened!  It seems like ages ago!  We got moved to a different hotel.  We don't know how long Bridgett will be here at inpatient rehab.  They have a meeting every Monday and asses the projected release date, but this past Monday she was so new here they didn't have enough data for assessment.  So, on Monday we should have some kind of ball park date for release.  Then she will have outpatient therapy for some time.  Today she walked a lot, rode the bike for about 20 minutes, put snap beads together, play toss the ball, played in a bin of little beans and searched for items like checkers, etc.  Bridgett started laughing and smiling at funny things.  Her personality is really starting to show through to the staff here.  It was a very busy day as she had four 45 minute therapy sessions back to back.  Today was her first day of eating.  She is at level dysphagia I--soft foods.  This includes applesauce and pudding and other things of that same texture.  So, what she got for lunch was pureed meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, and carrots.  She ate about 1/2 of those items and skipped berries and soup.  She did great with no choking at all.  When dinner came, she wouldn't even open her mouth.  Apparently her stomach has shrunk so she didn't feel remotely hungry.  Even though she gets the liquid tube feed, it doesn't fill up the stomach, so actually eating really made her full.  Mark did convince her to take a bite of pineapple and she shuttered!  She had a little apple juice and choked and we called it quits.  Mark tasted the food--salmon, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and pineapple.  He said the pineapple made him shutter too!  The green beans were terrible, but the salmon and mashed potatoes with gravy were fine.  It was his birthday dinner--today is Mark's birthday!  Not exactly the birthday dinner he might have hoped for!  All in all it was a good day.