Monday 8th September 2014

Guess who’s talking??? Well at least saying a few words under the careful watch of the physiotherapist and speech therapist J Message from Sue….. Gerard is recovering well from his surgery last Friday and the doctors are happy with how it went and how the “wounds” are healing. He is even sitting up from time to time and was even watching ‘crap’ tv this afternoon. Today we had visits from the respiratory team who will start moving Gerard onto a smaller more portable ventilator that he will use when he gets into the ward. He seems to have a lot less bags of stuff being drip fed into him through the IV’s than he had last week. Everything appears to be stable (heart, digestion, and all the other bits). Gerard also got to start work with the Speech Therapist and the physios. Speech is helping him to learn how to speak with the tracheostomy and the physio controls the ventilator to make sure he is still getting enough air. They were amazed at how well he did controlling his vocal cords. She said that honestly she has never had anyone be able to speak on their first go. After humming and arrrhing and doing a couple of other sounds, he was able to audibly count to 10 (even though he was only asked to count to 5 and then add 600 on the end!). He said the days of the week, months of the year, name and address. When asked if he had any questions for them he asked “How do I practise?” It was really tiring and he gets to have another go at 11 am in the morning. Still not sure when they will move him to the ward - looks like it is all heading in the right direction though. Sue told me this afternoon that she’s fairly sure that had his throat not been so sore by the end Gerard may have been trying to tell her to shut up after all her talking over the past 2 weeks and his not being able to talk back!! I’m sure that’s not true though. Max told Darcy that Gerard had spent about 30 minutes in the sunshine yesterday until it all became a bit too hot and he was moved back inside. Hope this puts a little smile on your face J For those helping out in the garden on Sunday I’m now waiting for Helen & Hugh (the Stevenson’s neighbours) to send through a plan of attack with the number of people to be assigned to each area. Can’t see it all happening in one day we can make a bit start. Will give details shortly and start time.