March 6, 2006
March 6, 2006 | Updates
It’s been a pretty uneventful week. We cleared up the yuck in Samuel’s eyes with some simple eye drops. He had a fever Tuesday, but it seemed to clear itself up within 24 hours. I have been worried that he might have an ear or sinus infection or a sore throat or something. But he has been really happy the past 2 days, just a little sleepier than usual. So we’ll just keep watching him.We did venture to Primary Children’s on Friday. We refilled Samuel’s pump and reduced the dosage to 1200 micrograms per 24 hours. Also, we FINALLY had an appointment with a neurologist. He was a really decent guy and actually has a daughter with cerebral palsy from a brain bleed at birth. He didn’t look like a doctor at all. (In fact, I wondered at first if he could even be a tech because he was dressed so shabby!) But he turned out to be really nice and understanding, which is more than I can say for a lot of neurologists I’ve heard of.
Anyhow, he went over Samuel’s original MRI with us that was done just 2 days post accident. He concurred with what we had heard before that the only damage really visable was to the basil ganglia. He did see some indication of damage in the thalamus also, but was uncertain how extensive it may or may not have been. Basically, he would classify Samuel as having Quadriplegia Athetoid Cerebral Palsy. Just a really fancy way of saying that Samuel has abnormal reflexes due to a lack of oxygen to his brain. He did not see any indication of damage to the “thinking” portions of his brain. But he did indicate that because the thalamus relays information throughout the brain, it could affect his thought process, memory, etc. In other words, Samuel probably has every memory of before the accident intact, but there is really no way of knowing if his brain can access those memories because doing so would involve the thalamus.
Anyway, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but we do see signs that he understands things and is still “there” cognitively. He just has a difficult time telling us that because his brain doesn’t control his body correctly anymore. However, the neurologist said he wouldn’t make any predictions about whether or not Samuel would ever crawl or walk or talk again because there just is no way to know right now. He said it’s definitely possible. That is the FIRST doctor who has EVER said that to us. So we like him :)!
We scheduled for Samuel to have another MRI the end of the month. That should tell us more about how his brain has changed since the accident. It won’t give us definite answers, but it will at least give us some idea of exactly what was and wasn’t damamged.
We also are starting hyperbaric treatments again tomorrow. We will just make the drive from home after having therapy in the mornings. It should make for really long days, but we saw so much improvement in Samuel the month following our last round of treatments, that we feel we need to give it another try.
Otherwise, not much more to report. Samuel was very smiley yesterday and I’ve been using sign language with him a bit. It seems now that if he’s crying and I sign to him, “don’t cry - laugh” he will cheer up a bit. Sometimes, he will even smile at it. One thing is for sure, he smiles more for Ben than for any of us. Those two have a connection that is far deeper than I ever understood. They are still inseparable even though they can’t even communicate with each other. It’s pretty neat!
I think Samuel can say “car” “go” and “hi”. His speech therapist thinks he can say “dog” and “cow”. Doesn’t really matter, though, I just love hearing him try. That’s one thing I’ve noticed lately is just how very, very much I am thankful to have him in my life. He is definitely a little angel and we all love him so very, very much!
Well, enough for tonight…Like I always say - keep praying! We still need it!
Love,
The Jewkes
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