Get Me Some Food…

This new rehabilitation hospital is pretty cool. The nurses and specialists here seem to have a good idea of what they want Raena to accomplish on a daily basis. Friday was very exciting for me as I got to join in on her PT/OT sessions and even saw her eat her first solid food since her injury occurred. The Speech Therapist brought out mandarin oranges and cinnamon toast crunch for Raena to try and she was very excited. I also learned how to turn all of Raena’s fluids into a nectar thick substance which is pretty simple. Regular watery fluids are too thin for Raena to consume at this point in time due to her muscles still learning how to swallow properly. I learned today that there are like 54 different muscles that are required in order to swallow, pretty impressive lol.

It was a joy to see Raena try and eat oranges for the first time, in fact it is one of her favorites, so it was a great first treat to try! When they gave her the cinnamon toast crunch cereal, they had first made it soggy in milk but then allowed her to try and eat it dry, which was a great thing to see her chew and crunch on the cereal. She seemed to enjoy it as she wanted that over the soggy one 🙂 Her mouth muscles tired quickly though and she was only able to eat a few pieces of cereal and a few pieces of the orange. However, she did gulp down 2 danimal yogurts as well.

A good friend Mike showed up for her Friday PT session and it was cool to see his reaction as he is a PT himself and seemed to understand everything the staff was doing with Raena and giving me some good tips. He also was impressed with the way Raena has recovered so far and it is good to have someone else’s opinion as to how good she is doing since I have nothing to evaluate it against.

For me it is tough to even think about at times watching her struggle to turn over or to take a step and even stand up or chew her food. Although, I am also very happy when I see the difference in where she was just a couple weeks ago and where she is at today. If you recall, she was not really moving much and her left side of her body was pretty dead to the world, and now she is moving all parts of her body very well and even trying to exercise them all day long. It is a struggle for Raena to walk but day by day she is getting better and getting the coordination back. You can see her determination and will power to get over this injury and I am confident she will recover well. There has not been a prognosis for where they expect her to be other than from the scans and the way she is reacting to treatment they say it should be a pretty good recovery.

I am hoping she will be able to either attend her Aunt’s wedding at the end of May or possibly her school graduation in June, but we are taking it one step at a time. There is no reason to rush her road to recovery. Raena wants the downstairs room in my house and I was thinking this would be best for her to have when she returns from the hospital but I could have been wrong. The rehab specialists say that it would be good for her to have to go up and down stairs again to regain all of the same coordination and mobility she had before the injury. Even if she gets the downstairs room, she will have to go up three steps and back down three steps as I live in a tri-level house. I think we will try and give Raena the room she wants and Kaylee wants to help decorate it and get it all ready for her.

The best thing from this past week is that she is definitely recovering and making progress daily. You can here the happiness in the PT/OT voices everytime they work with her and say how far she is coming along in such a short time span. Thank you again for all your support you all are giving, Raena definitely feels it!

Visitors are always welcome, just give me a call or a text to make sure it is a good time, I am usually there from 3pm throughout the night and will be there this whole weekend. Again, in case you need the number, it is 714-884-8087 … Talk to you all again soon!