The therapists and nurses at Mercy IRU are WONDERFUL.  They know we want to help and learn, but they also know when it’s best to push us away and disengage, so those are the times I like to connect and get some work done if I can.  They also remind us that we will be responsible for continued therapy when she leaves (and that could be as soon as tomorrow or more likely Friday) and they are committed to teaching us all we need to know.

She made GREAT progress today and I am honestly very proud of her.  She’s fighting to get home more than I ever imagined.  Kenzie cleared PT this morning so the 2 hours of PT she was scheduled for tomorrow will all be converted to a little OT and a lot of ST, which is where she wants and needs to focus. 

Kenzie still struggles a little with numbers and dates, but words are coming faster and more accurately all the time.   One trick we learned today… when asked her birthday (and they do that a LOT) she can tell you immediately it’s in “April”, then she struggles with the numbers.  If you show her 25 and 1996 on paper she can usually get them after a minute or two but she might say the wrong digit in places, like “23" and “1995”.  But if you write “twenty-five” and “nineteen ninety six” or “one nine nine six” she can read that and say them immediately.   If she says something like “23” I ask her to show me and she holds up two fingers and five fingers, looks at them and then corrects herself speaking “twenty-five” or “twenty-fifth”.  If I then show her five fingers and two she tells me they are backwards and gives me one finger in return.

I have never been so happy to be flipped off.

The PT and OT teams meet on Thursday late morning or early afternoon, and they make decisions on future plans and/or discharge then. Patients only get one day of therapy on the weekend so we’ve been told to expect she could be discharged on Friday, if not earlier.

I also got word today that she can receive outpatient ST and OT from Grinnell Regional Medical Center which will be so much more convenient and beneficial than going elsewhere I think.

It’s getting pretty late here so I better wrap this up. I’ll certainly write more when we have news of discharge or other plans.