Sunday, August 7th - Day 49 Update

Tori woke up today in good mood after her fairly decent night of sleep. She was given another 'Day at the Spa' treatment by Maria which includes a warm sponge bath, shaving, shampoo and massage and fingernail polish. That put her in a great state for the rest of the day.

In my meeting with Dr. Such-Neibar, one of Tori's therapy and rehabilitation doctors, we dicussed adding Keppra back into Tori's medications once her Valproate (Valproic Acid) levels are between 80-100. When we took Tori off of Keppra originally she seemed to become much more awake and aware so we thought there was a drowsiness downside to the drug. Apparantly this is unfounded so we are going to try it again and reduce the Baclofen if there are positive results. We also discussed Piracetam which is a relatively new drug here in the states though it has been widely used in Europe and Canada. The therapy and rehabilitation doctors here have NO experience with it because it is so new here. We will see how the Keppra path goes but it might be time for some Piracetam experience if all of the positive information I have researched is true.

Tori finally bit down on her lip a bit too hard today and opened a cut or two. She was highly agitated and we didn't want her to do it again so I placed a rolled up piece of cotton between her teeth and lower lip. Bad idea... She eventually freed it and we were lucky enough to get a plastic syringe between her teeth so I could use tweazers to retrieve the cotton. Just before she swallowed it of course... So we tried a bite block next which worked for while until she learned if she opened her mouth real wide it could be freed... Taping it to her cheek was the next idea which failed as well becasue the bite block eventually slipped and Tori cut up her tongue a bit... So we just ended up taking it out and tried to let Tori deal with it and deal with it she did. She learned how to use her tongue to push her lower lip out before clamping her teeth together. Now the real cool part about this is when I ask her to use her tongue on her lip she does it!! She did this 4 times in a row for me. Now if I can just get her to interact in a more positive setting than a cut up mouth... Another positive with this experience is that Tori CAN definitely gag!! She demonstrated it several times during the retrieval process.

Tori's NJ Tube also slipped out about 3-4 inches today so we had to do 2 sets of X-Rays to ensure it was still positioned correctly. Thankfully it was so nothing needed to be done. We have also increased Tori's continuous feed rate to 45 milliliters per hour through her NJ Tube which is more indication of progress on the digestive system front.

Tori just recieved her 11:00pm nightly doses of Valium and Zanaflex so hopefully we both will have a great night's sleep!! :-)

Good night,

-Tim