Saturday, April 7th

Sorry I didn’t get a post on here yesterday. By the time I had a chance it was late, and I was exhausted. I figured everyone would forgive me. To make up for it, I’ve put a new video clip and some pictures in the gallery.

Friday, was a busy day… Rehab, cleaning, feeding, fighting with Mom because we’re both exhausted, more feeding, watching TV with Kerrie and then everyone going to sleep.

We rushed around in the morning ( or I should say Mom and Kerrie rushed around..) and then Kerrie and I were off to Rehab.

Friday’s session started with Speech Therapy. She started out with pictures and words combined together and had no problem naming what was in the picture. When it’s just the picture, she has a lot more difficulty. Was not able to name most of the pictures, so the Therapist had her trying to describe what the item is.. what it looks like, shape, how it’s made etc..

Kerrie would give as much description as she could until she could come up with the name of what was in the picture. She was shown a glass of ice water, but couldn’t say what it was.. so she described it. “It looks cold.. it looks wet.. It’s tap water.”

When given a situation, she can point to the picture of what she would need, but can’t name it. “Kerrie, if you have spinach in your teeth what would you need?” She can point to the picture of the toothbrush, but can’t say what its name is unless the word “toothbrush” is written on the picture.

She was then shown pictures of people doing things and was asked to give a sentence describing what she thought was going on. She had a little difficulty with this one, but made me laugh when she looked at a picture of a boy with a backback, walking in front of a school. She said he was finished with his science class, was going home, was going to put down the backpack and eat.. because boys like to eat. Very cute.

The Therapist says we need to get her to give us more details and descriptions of things when she asks for something. If she can’t name something, we’re supposed to get her to talk about it, describe it, how it’s used.. and not give her the item until she can come up with the word. This is difficult for us to do.. because we tend to try to finish her sentences for her.. and I’m not sure this is the best tactic to take when she needs to use the bathroom 🙂 Plus, it really pisses her off!

The Therapist then tried to get her to name body parts.. she couldn’t name any, so the Therapist started pointing to things and asking Kerrie what they were. Couldn’t come up with the name for “eyes” and “ears”… but when she pointed to her teeth Kerrie looked like she was struggling with the word. The Therapist asked, “What do you tear your food with?” Kerrie looked at her, matter of factly, and said “Incisors.” Well… the Therapist was looking for the word “Teeth”, but she was pointing to her incisors and and asked her what you would tear your food with.. and Kerrie gave her the correct answer. Maybe she should have asked her what she “chewed” her food with and she would have gotten the answer she was looking for 🙂

The best was still yet to come.. the Therapist held up her hands and Kerrie said “Hands”.. then her thumbs and Kerrie said “Thumbs”…. then her fingers and Kerrie said…. “Metacarples..” The Therapist and I burst out laughing and she said, “Kerrie, don’t forget these..” and pointed to her toes.. Kerrie laughed and said ” Metatarcels”.

OK.. she can’t come up with the words for eyes and ears.. but metacarples and metatarcles are no fricking problem!! No wonder she got an A in her Anatomy class.

Occupational Therapy was next… and I was exhausted just watching her do her modified sit-ups, rearranging plastic cups and balancing on a rubber ball. Her homework assignment, for the weekend, is to stand at the kitchen sink and brush her teeth at the sink. The Therapist showed me how to balance her, while she does this, but I think I’ll wait until Mom’s home to try this one.

Physical Therapy was interesting.. Kerrie’s normal Therapist, Tim, had the day off so another person was filling in. It was a little obvious she hadn’t worked with Kerrie before when she walked up to Kerrie, put her hand on the back of the wheelchair and said, “O.K. Kerrie, stand up.” Kerrie gave her a funny look, looked at me, I said, “Kerrie have you ever done this alone before”… and she said.. “Ummm… NOOOOO.” I’m not sure whether Kerrie thought she was supposed to try, and it was intentional, or if she just didn’t want to make the Therapist feel stupid.. so she tried. Didn’t make it though. I think that’s when the woman realized Kerrie wasn’t able to do most of these things on her own. The rest of the session went well, and they even let Kerrie take a little nap in between excersizes. At the end of the session, I was filling in the Therapist with everything that had happened with Kerrie and that, some day, she was going to be someone’s case study. I said I thought she should get royalities, but Kerrie insisted she didn’t want them.. The Therapist asked her what she wanted then and Kerrie replied.. “I just want my life back!”

Then it was time to come home.. meds.. etc. Kerrie decided to try something new for dinner… Sweet Potato and HOT DOGS! Yeah.. she actually ate something that required real chewing… and she said they tasted “fabulous”.

Not many people are going to say that about hot dogs 🙂

Kerrie, you keep improving on the things you can eat.. keep working on that speech, keep trying to do things that seem impossible… and you will get your life back!!

We all love you Ker-bear. Now do me a favor, take those metacarples and give some “sign language” to some of those doctors who said you would never be able to do any of these things!