Weekly Update

Rick has had a week of ups and downs.  He seems to be getting better and more cooperative and then he will have a day where nothing seems to satisfy him.  So it goes with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  He has been doing his daily series of therapy and there seems to be progress, which is great.  But since there really isn't anything medically wrong with him other than his memory, it's time to find a new temporary home for Rick to continue with his therapy.

This hasn't been an easy task for Mary and she has visited a few different rehab centers looking for the right fit for Rick's needs. The professionals are looking to add Behavioral Therapy to his list of Occupational, Speech and Physical Therapies.

Mary has been at his side constantly since the accident and has only left him for going to work and sleeping at home. This weekend there was a family activity that she would be missing, so we offered to sit with Rick Saturday night. 

Rick had showered and shaved , then dressed in clean clothes anticipating that he would be joining Mary  and was sorely disappointed when he heard he would have to stay in the hospital.
"You mean I did all this for Dale and Linda?"

When we arrived he climbed out of his bed and sat upright in a chair for about 4 hours while we had multiple conversations with him.  He was calm and cooperative with us, but refused to eat his dinner no matter what we tried.

He spoke of confusing things that we couldn't understand and didn't remember things that had happened in recent years like who had died, married or moved away and kept mentioning things from years ago. The three of us have a long history together and we knew a lot of what he was trying to say, but it was still pretty jumbled. When he said things that we knew aren't correct, we challenged him and he would become argumentative and offer to bet millions of dollars that he was right. Then would back down and say , "well maybe not." (TBI again)

Dale asked him how he would get home from the hospital if he could drive home. This was his response:
"Well I would take 94 to 894 then get to where it says Fond du Lac to 41/45 and exit at Silver Spring, then drive to Town Line Road turn on to MacLynn and the second right is Memory"
Pretty good!

I'll close with what I think is the best line of night. Dale was asking him about more recent events to see if we could get him to remember and began questioning him about his trap shooting which he did remember and the fact that he had borrowed Dale's gun and had it  "under my bed" :)  Then Dale asked him about the specials they had during the season.
Rick responded , "Dollar beers."
I laughed at him, "you are unbelievable, you can only remember things from 10 years ago, but you instantly remember that!"
He smiled and said, "I remember the important things"