Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Today was a great day! Christy is still working on getting full function of their tongue.  It's so difficult for her to chew and speak well with the discomfort.  Christy had an entire yogurt today, so she's starting to get back to eating and can  leave that tube feeding behind again!  

Occupational therapy utilized the rocking chair again today.  Christy sits on the rocking chair during her 30 minute reserved time slot in the morning.  Christy can tolerate about twenty minutes and uses her feet to control her rock and to stabilize herself.  Christy also has some custom glasses.  The glasses are not prescription, they are just lenses.  These glasses have scotch tape on specific angles on the nasal end  to try and block part of the visual field in hopes of  a clearer visual picture.  Other patients state that they can tell "where things are for the first time".  Christy had these glasses a few days previous, but they added another piece of scotch tape over the right eye across the top today.  

With the tape on, the eyes could be forced to focus and not deviate.  The tape over the top of the right eye is related to the fact that Chrsity closes her right eye when she looks up.  The therapist feel that Christy gets double vision when she looks up and that is why she closes the eye.  It also makes her feel sick to look up.  So far the glasses haven't been extremely affective, but we'll keep trying.  (i couldn't find a picture of glasses with the tape going the other direction, but wanted to show some with occlusion-- these probably help another disorder of the eye)

Christy went to the repositioning clinic today to help make a better seat for her wheelchair.  

The room is full of all kinds of wheelchair accessories & parts ... more than we can imagine! When Christy switched to her upright chair from the Tilt chair, Christy battled nausea.  We don't really know  why.  Today Christy got a new back on her chair to hopefully decrease the nausea.  Christy's nausea is preventing her from getting the full work out at therapy & is very uncomfortable.  That's why this is an issue.  They want her to progress to the upright chair instead of staying on the tilt wheelchair.  They are continually concerned about Christy having the right position and posture.  They want Christy to be sitting correctly so her spine doesn't curve.  

Other than that, just a lot of lovin' going on! Until tomorrow.  

p.s. Kaeo may be helping me blog on days when I work to help me out- so stay tuned!