5/31 Another Fine Day at PT

Josie and her PT Professional Jocelyn had a fantastic time playing and getting stronger today. All were impressed with the fun and spunk Josie demonstrated during her entire session…nothin’ but fun. It looks as though Josie will be getting a couple night-time splints for those pesky heel cords of hers to help stretching them. They’re improving, but not well enough. As with most things Josie (aside from broken bones which mend remarkably fast), those heel cords are taking their own sweet time improving. The good leg foot is OK, but no great. Her broken leg foot is way bad…worse than before the break… which really wasn’t unexpected.

Next steps are to get more weight on those legs for Josie and build more strength and flexibility…those are the keys to better mobility. The great news is that Josie’s very motivated about getting more mobile and better…maybe it’s the weather, but whatever it is she’s having a hard time sitting still and on her keester. She’s on her feet several hours each day.

Nutrition is still an issue. Her appetite for real food by mouth is just a smidge better that it’s been, but still almost non-existent. You’ve all had more food in the last 24 hours than Josie’s had in the last nine months. I just cannot imagine that frame of mind…having virtually no food for the last 1/5 of your life and then getting back into eating…it’s a different paradigm which no one I know can relate.

She’s still vomiting about once a day, but that’s usually because we give her too many drugs too quick and it upsets her little tummy. Otherwise her tummy pain has improved over the last month.

Now that it’s June we can expect those other two drainage tubes to finally be pulled from her tummy which have been there since the February non-Whipple surgery. In fact, today I almost did the doc’s work for them by nearly yanking one of the tubes out as the end was stuck in Josie’s pants when I was changing her up…YANK! It was a really close call and it kind of hurt Josie just a little. With summer here and everything way more active, all those tubes are being transported all over the place and it’s really a challenge trying the keep from accidentally catching the loop on a door handle, or stroller wheel, or bathroom cupboard handle, or stepping on it, or a dog catching it, or a person walking by catching a loop, or any of the other couple dozen close calls we’ve had with those tubes the last few days.