Jane’s Stroke Blog

second update

July 18th, 2007

Jane has had an interesting six days since her first injection last week. We are all looking for small improvement or any improvements. Jane has had aches and pains in various part of her legs and arms. And her right hand has always been tight and sore when opening it all the way. Lately she has not complained about doing that. She has had tight interior leg muscles and those seem to be looser too and with less to no pain when moved laterally. She can have her right arm raised vertically over her head with no pain. She has had fewer bouts of vomiting due to the gastritis, mostly associated with food and especially oils in food and also due to motion when being turned during the night.

The therapists for PT and OT are saying they feel a small muscle response when moving right arm and left leg. And Jane thinks she can feel it too. Jane is sitting better and her head and neck feels stronger, she says. Some of these things were evident with the TCM in Tianjin but I think now a little more noticable. The ankle is still weak on her left foot but they are still putting her on the standing frame once daily at 60% incline and maybe soon a full upright position.

Jane and I and our helper have had several walk-abouts lately each for about one hour. The walks are around the hospital grounds or to the store or to the entrance and beyond the Temple of Heaven. We plan touring the Temple of Heaven soon weather permitting since it has been hot and rainy lately. If we can get out in the am on Sat or Sun. and beat the heat we will go. This place is only a 15 to 20 minute walk from the hospital and no need for a taxi. I understand that we can expect two hours inside to see the sites and that would be about 3 hours away from the hospital. Our next big tour would be The Forbidden City and then shopping at the Ancient Culture Sreet. By the way I highly recommend hiring a helper even though the patient might have a family member here. The communication gap with English to Chinese is wide and the helper can make that much easier with the doctors and nurses. Yet some of these do speak English some things can get misinterpreted. Some do speak English enough to get by and you can use a computer translator program which helps too.

As far as the other patients we have seen. One just left to go home to Australia. Karen walked about 20 steps the day before and that was after a good while not on her feet. She has a blog you can read up on. But it was so exciting to see that all three of us teared up with her and her caregivers and Therapists. Also, read about Sonya and her battle with CP. She is such an encouraging site that we are inspired every day cause she is doing so well too.

By for now

Entry Filed under: stroke