Thursday, September 22nd - Day 95 Update

Hello again,

Tori's sleeping pattern during Wednesday night was very intermittent and she probably ended up with only a few hours of total sleep... There was also a medication error on the charts so she was given a dose of melatonin in the morning just prior to her therapy sessions. This of course caused her to sleep pretty much through a couple of them...

Tori did wake up for the therapy sessions later in the day and once again we placed her in the wheelchair and went outside for a while. She had her arm and hand stretching completed while outside and she was able to track autos and look at the flowers. The fire truck and ambulance that went by with sirens and horns blaring did cause her to jump a bit as well. The speech therapists also completed their session outside and they are trying to get a consistent yes\no type response out of Tori. Whether it is a head shake for 'no' or a blink for 'yes', we must eventually get some consistency of response type. They also watched as Tori tracked various objects being moved in front of her face. When we returned to the room Maria gave Tori a great tooth brushing and mouth cleaning session and we placed her back in bed once we were done. Tori then watched and tracked on Whitney quite a bit.

Tori was visibly dehydrated today so we had to back off the Jevity 2.0 feeds and go back to the 1.0 feeds with more water added. The bilious amounts removed from her stomach is still quite large and all of that fluid must be replaced thought Tori's GJ-Tube. We also removed her trach plug and placed the heated and humidified air mask over her trach again. This will also provide much needed water to Tori's system. This unfortunately seems to be a constant battle for Tori and us...

Tori also had another GI doctor analyze her GJ-Tube opening and the stomach x-ray taken this afternoon. It has been looking rather red and sore lately and there has been some Bilious leakage around it. As a precaution, some antibiotics were ordered for Tori as well as some additional stomach care medications.

The most disconcerting news of the day was based on the results of Tori's MRI taken yesterday. We sat down with the rehabilitation doctor David and a neurologist and Tori's overall brain has definitely shrunken in size since the previous MRI's. It is somewhat expected after an injury like Tori's but it is still a negative finding and further analysis will be needed and the neuropsychological tests will need to take place. Researching the findings on the internet hasn't turned up much information either... We will more than likely take the new MRI results back up to all of the PCMC neurologists who analyzed Tori originally and ask for their input.

I would like to thank all of those people who turned up at the Timpanogos High School event tonight. It was definitely a tough day for us all but it was very nice to personally meet many of you who are following Tori's ever changing story. I think I teared up only a few times during the event which isn't too bad with all things considered. Thank you once again for all of the outstanding support!!

Good night and at least Tori is sleeping soundly as I am finishing this,

-Tim