Hello all,
So I met up with Roger today for his follow up appointment with Dr. Alexander at the rehab hospital. The appointment went fairly well. We went in thinking there were only a couple things to address and more things came up as we went along. He ended up getting an X-ray of his left hip. It is larger than the right hip so the doc was thinking there may be some extra bone growth. The x-ray did not show that so that is good. It may just look larger since he has lost alot of muscle mass and weight in the lower half of his body. He has quite the blister on his left heel so he will need to wear the boot he wore when he was in the hospital all day. He still has the open sore on his tailbone that the doc said doesn't look any worse or better when he left, so it is something that is going to take time to heal. Unfortunately it is in a bad spot that is constantly getting irritated by something.
We finally got the results from the MRI that he got the day before he was discharged. Pretty much the MRI showed a very bruised spinal cord in the T12 area. Not good unfortunately. Only time will tell though with this kind of injury.
We then went to the lab so Roger could get some blood drawn. The results will give the doc an idea if there is extra bone growth in his body and his nutrition status and a multitude of other things. She just wants to see if there is extra bone growth since that would cause some of the pain Roger is feeling in different areas.
She also made some adjustments to his medications, so slowly but surely he has quite the pharmacy happening.
Other than that, he looked good and we had a good time together. Ricky brought him up so we all went out to lunch after the blood draw. Apparently Ricky found him on the "creeper" under his rock crawler in the garage yesterday, so he is finally getting back into doing the things he loves. Ricky said he has had some down days but doesn't talk about it. Roger seems to be in fear of any ramps or things like that being permanent. I think there still may be a part of the accident that hasn't settled in Roger's mind. Only time will tell!
Well figured I should write now. Headed to Hawaii on Saturday and will be gone for 6 days. Looking forward to the beach and sun before I start working as a paid RN on the 1st!
Take care all! Much love to ya!