Stroke - Day Two

Mark had a pretty good night last night. Mom went home to let their dogs out and to try to get a good night's sleep since she's fighting a bad cold. Pat and I stayed in Columbus - he at his sister's and me in the room with Mark. He slept pretty well (as well as you can sleep with nurses coming in every 45 minutes. I learned that the hard way last night).

A  physical therapist came to evaluate Mark this morning. Although he still has no movement in his right side, she did feel some tingling and twitching in his right arm. She thought it could be a response to his left arm moving and his right arm trying to do the same. She sat him up for twenty minutes and seemed encouraged by the fact that he was able to support himself, even using his good arm to help the physical therapist sit him up.

When my mom arrived back to the hospital this morning, Mark was very excited to see her. He leaned his head up and even made a slight noise, which is the first we've heard him do that. He's made a few slight noises since and we are taking that as a positive sign!

Several doctors have come to evaluate Mark today and Mark did not follow any of their commands ore requests, unless they demonstrated it visually. This led them to believe that he is not responding to or comprehending verbal cues but we disagree. As soon as they left the room, I asked him to give me a thumbs up and he raised his arm. My mom asked him to give her a kiss, and he raised his head up to do it. The doctor asked him to open his mouth and he did. There is a chance that he only comprehends some of the requests. Or, we've decided that maybe he is just picking and choosing who he wants to use his limited energy on and it's not the doctors!

It's been very frustrating trying to determine whether or not he's in pain because he can't really communicate with us and we're always wondering if he is. We decided if he was really in pain, he would try to tell us. This afternoon, he was squirming like he couldn't get comfortable so I went and asked him to raise his hand if he was in pain. He raised his hand right away. But then I wondered if maybe he only heard the first half of my question about raising his hand so I turned around to ask my mom if I should ask him again. Before I could even ask him again he raised his hand up. We thought that was a pretty obvious sign so we went and told the nurse. He should be getting on pain medication very soon. 

We also think you can read his nonverbals on his face to know when he's agitated, mad and when he's happy. I heard one very encouraging piece of information from one of the doctors today. He explained that we will learn a lot over the next few days. Mark's brain is still swollen from the stroke. So as the swelling goes down over the next few days, we should see some improvements and that will give us a better idea about the severity of the permanent damage from the stroke. So I am hanging on to what I believe sounds like something hopeful!

Mom will be staying with him tonight, I'm going back home to try and get a good night's sleep and I will be coming back again tomorrow and at that point, we'll just be taking it day by day.