2012 03 06 Tuesday March 6

Post date: Mar 6, 2012 11:50:08 PM

Our apologies for the less-frequent posts lately! There hasn't been a lot of news... until today. :-)

Fortunately Martha is continuing to get stronger and more alert. She seems to be blazing through her speech therapy and her physical and occupational therapy. She is continuing to have terrible headaches, however, which is making it hard for her to be motivated in therapy or to eat as much as she needs. (She is eating a lot better, however. Her church friend Ama, who is on staff at Salem, says she has finally gained some weight this week.)

As many of her visitors have realized, when she isn't in therapy, she is often sound asleep. Yesterday Amanda and I stopped by in the afternoon and she was very sound asleep, and we stopped by again after dinner she had already gone to bed, but she was very eager to talk, so she pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the bed. Amanda wore out and had to go home before Martha was ready...

The nurses alerted Dr. Smith at Salem about to Martha's ongoing headaches. Dr. Smith saw her today, and also consulted with Dr. Krisht, who scheduled her for an office visit in Little Rock in 10 days, and both doctors ordered CT scans for her. The nurses are trying to determine if both scans are necessary, or just one.

Amanda is doing better, as well. She is finding all the therapies helpful in different ways, and is relieved she can slowly decrease most of the medications. She's also finding that mild exercise has been more helpful than the medications at keeping her symptoms in check. (She commented that her doctor has been telling her this for a long time now, but I guess she wasn't ready to hear it.) Amanda still isn't up to full strength but feels like things are improving.