Wednesday, August 31st - Day 73 Update

Hello everyone,

Tori slept well once again!! A new, positive streak is in effect as Tori slept from 10:00pm Tuesday night until 6:30am Wednesday morning. She required NO Valium last night as well.

Tori had a heavy physical therapy day and they actually used the tilt table on her. She basically gets strapped onto a table which then tilts to an almost completely vertical position. So Tori is essentially standing once it is tilted and she actually responded quite well to this new therapy method. Once that was completed she was placed in her wheelchair and stayed in it about 3 hours!! Again, one of the main goals we have is to keep her out of the bed as much as possible so Maria toured the HSH with her and even went outside for some fresh air and sunshine. When she finally returned to the room some additional exercises were done with her while she remained in the chair.

Maria and I also did another exercise with her that involves one of us climbing on the end of her bed, then we press her feet against our chest and bend her legs while we proceed to push her knees to her chest. We were advised NOT to look at her face while doing this... Let's just say it doesn't feel good to her but the stretching is very important for her back. Maria and I also gave her some additional arm, hand and shoulder stretching this afternoon.

Tori slept once again without the trach button plug in because she is much more comfortable when it is out for the time being. The suctionings continued to occur all night and early this morning and her lungs appeared to be very clean but she still had difficulty when the plug was inserted. It was finally determined that Tori's trach button extended to far into her throat and it was actually blocking some of the airflow. So an extention was added to the trach button which extended it outward a bit more. Tori then responded positively when the plug was used. We are removing the plug at night and using humidified air so we can easily clean her up after she coughs. All that is needed is a wipe afterward which is much better than using a suction catheter on her...

Tori's Myoclonus is still present and the Valproic Acid levels they measured yesterday still show a 50 level... So we increased the Valproate once again to get the levels to the desired 80-100 range. I don't really want to wait until next Tuesday for another set of results so we will get another blood test within the next few days to check the Valproic Acid range.

I'll close by announcing that a new line of candles bearing Tori's beautiful image will be available very shortly on this site. The candle creators are our kind and caring new friends at For Every Body and they have also included a link to this site on their company homepage. Here is the For Every Body site and the candles will be also be available at the University Mall For Every Body store as well. Thank you so much guys!!

Until tomorrow,

-Tim