prayers answered
If you pray for us, thank you.
Brain Injury Services finally made contact and we have an appointment for a home visit at the end of the month. They make no promises for a case manager but this is the first sign of hope for their assistance since their initial visit last January.
We have an appointment with a neuropsychologist on Friday. This doctor was previously the staff neuropsychologist for the Bridge Program at Mt. Vernon Rehab. Her primary focus has been on brain injury and she comes highly recommended. From my perspective, Michael’s continued recovery now requires the assistance, guidance and skill of trained professionals.
Tomorrow we have an appointment with Michael’s Physiatrist at Mt. Vernon Rehab. During that appointment Michael will have all his current medications checked to make sure that we are optimizing pharmasuitacles . Interestingly enough while we were waiting to see the neuro-opthamologist, I picked up a magazine to browse through and ran across an article “Common Drugs May Cause Cognitive Problems”. I begin reading about anticholinergic drugs. Yeah, don’t feel bad I had no idea either.
Middle of December, just before Mike left to go on the trip to Florida, I noticed that his memory was beginning to slip. Hard to measure at times but for the last few months I could tell that the degree of memory, the ability to lay down new memory was improving. He would remember what he couldn’t hang on to before. He could read the “daily” and be able to give details about the reading five minutes later, an hour later and at times even that evening and beyond. The Intellectual Devotional that Mike reads everyday after breakfast, he reads to himself sitting at the table. After the first read, he’ll read out loud to me or I’ll read to him, we discuss the subject and then he takes notes (with help) on the information that he might need to remember if he were taking a class. Mike would eventually like to return to school.
Ok, so I noticed there was a decline in short term memory and I noticed that he wasn’t laying down new memory that is key to learning new information. Our exercise routine was interrupted around the Thanksgiving holiday and never really got back on track. He was going to Florida, there was Christmas…we all fall into it, we’re really just making excuses but they’re good excuses right? So I’m thinking maybe it’s the lack of exercise, maybe this is the plateau we’ve been running from… but sitting in Dr. Snyder’s office, I read about what may have happened.
Mike clears his throat a lot. Sinus drainage? A new habit? We made an appointment with his primary care and he said Mike’s ears were full, his sinuses were full almost to the point of infection. He explained that the post nasal drip would cause mike to clear his throat even when he didn’t realize his sinuses were draining. Mike is also belching quite a bit, he seems like he takes in alot of air but the Dr. said that the two may go hand in hand. Draining sinuses possibly = reflux. Along with the new allergy med, he prescribed pantoprazole to reduce the amount of acid produced in Mike’s stomach.
I read the article, started putting the time frames together (memory/cognitive stall and the new meds), pulled up a few sites on the web and low and behold, pantoprazole is an anticholinergic drug. Although Michael’s belching did improve with the pantoprazole, he hasn’t taken one pill from the bottle since that day.
Our family physician is one of the best doctors we’ve ever had. I guess the lesson is no matter how capable your doctor is, no matter how much you trust them, you have to be your own advocate. Research the diagnosis, research and cross check your prescribed medications – it worked for us.
How’s Mike doing? Well, as of Monday he is the COO of his own company. A purpose driven life – a different approach might get us past the lack of drive to continue the long hard course. Mike wants to drive, he wants to continue his education, he wants to work but he was losing the energy and focus to make it happen. We talked about purpose – he needed to understand his role in rehabilitating his brain. He said he and Karl had always talked about starting a company together and based on the list of things that he is in charge of now, he said he was reconstructing, rebuilding his life. He claimed his role as COO and named his company Build It Back Construction. He elected himself the chief operating officer in his own construction company- Mike needed to understand his importance, his purpose. He needed to identify his purpose. Mike helped Charlie put together a recruiting company from the ground up. He understands the commitment, the hours of the building the foundation brick by brick and pushing himself even when progress seems as though there’s none at all. Showing up for work each day and giving it your all is vital to the success of the company. The most important role of his life is as COO of Building It Back (rehabilitating his brain) and now he can wrap his head around a role of responsibility that he can be proud of. A reason – the success of his own company depends on him now. OBTW, I am CEO, Bobby is CFO and Nathan is his spiritual advisor, Sylvette’s and Emily’s roles have yet TBD – a little challenge to those non texters 
We’re setting realistic goals each day and we’re building to achieve weekly goals, monthly goals. He selects a skill that needs honing or maybe one that was lost so we’re starting from the beginning. I reminded him that surviving the brain injury was just the beginning. He started from nothing and had to learn to feed himself again, he re-learned to walk, re-learned to read and to write, re-learned to feed and dress himself. He can do this, the success of his company depends on it. We have big plans – we’re going to be more proactive – we’re going to reach out and we’re going to accomplish big things. It’s going to be a great year – stay tuned!
xxoo