Bozgratch

So, before noon he’s seen three doctors and gotten two different directions.

Surgeon and Renal doctors say discharge him, but the vascular guy who is doing fistula surgery on MONDAY say to keep him in hospital until the surgery.  What will happen we have yet to see.

At this time the hardest thing to tell is how much he actually WANTS to do things, get better, get stronger, etc. .  Having always been a gentle man, he is always cooperative when someone TELLS him to do something, but as to initiative to get better resulting in exercise on his own — that seems bottled up.  Whether antidepressants will help or not we’ll find out over time.  But right now time isn’t exactly his best friend.  He has so little strength in any part of his body and every day delayed is more lost ground.

When he has been gotten UP, meaning attempts at standing so that he can move from bed to chair, he is very bent over and has very little ability to even assist in supporting himself.   It’s really a tough thing to evaluate.  Very little ability to slide his feet, much less LIFT them.  Very little strength in his LEFT arm — almost none.  Only minimal strength in his right arm — meaning he can move it slowly and against only minor resistance up and around and in front of himself.

The speech therapist gave him a swab with water on it placing it in his left hand.  When asked to lift the  sponge swab to his mouth and use it himself to rub the inside of his mouth he was able to get the left arm in the air — ending up a foot to the right of his mouth and unable to bring it back.  When the swab was placed IN his mouth he could not do much more than let it rest there.