Day 44 - Lots of good therapy

Daniel walked to wound care in the tub room today early and returned by mid-morning. Once his pain medications wore off he was a bit groggy, but Dawn ordered some breakfast yogurt (silk) and slowly fed him sausage and handed the fork to Daniel to try to eat some too. Daniel struggled with eating with his right hand as before, but was able to do a lot of the feeding himself once we queued up food on his modified fork. After breakfast I flossed his teeth and got him ready for more action.

We rested then his OT K. came in and did some arm stretching which brought his heart rate up from the mid 130s into the 150s. After that we moved him to a chair to do more work with puzzles and more movement.

His heart rate stayed high and never moved below 148 or so. We were planning to have him walk again, but his heart rate jumped a bit more to above 150 when his PT A. arrived - as if he anticipated what she would have him do (walking). They consulted with the physicians and decided that when walking his heart rate would likely jump another 20 beats into the 170s and that was unwise.

So we transitioned Daniel back to bed and A. showed us how to safely stretch his arms. Once in bed his heart rate dropped into the 140s and eventually back down to the 130s where he's been hovering as a resting rate for the past few days. Once he was settled in for a bit Dawn fed him some lunch of chicken salad and cooked carrots. He seemed to like what was given him until he felt full.

Later this afternoon Daniel took his first pleasure roll in a wheelchair on the promenade deck... no? Well then it was actually a lovely view of the hospital dumpsters down the hall from the ICU Burn Unit. Then we rolled on to a view to the north view from the Lido level (nope - surgery access portal) where we could see the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Daniel doesn't like to stop for any length of time so we kept him moving and finished up our loop and returned to his room and moved him back to bed.

Today's trip is a preview of many short trips we will be doing for the next few weeks to get him out and moving about. Eventually we'd like to get him outside and in some fresh air. Dan's heart rate stayed high in the 140s, but never spiked above 150 so at least he stayed a little calmer than his earlier out-of-bed time today.

After a while Dan's surgeon Dr. Wi. stopped by to see how we were doing. We mentioned Daniel's high heart rate and the doctor said it might be a long time after his skin is healed that this and other related conditions might exist. He mentioned another patient who was a serious cyclist who had only an 8% burn on his leg. Long after his burn had healed he had a high heart rate when he would ride. He went to sports specialists to see how he could fix his issues, but these burns have a way to taking looooong to heal. Long after the actual burn has healed the internal organs still can suffer and need more time to come back to normal.

This evening will bring Jamie for a visit and we'll try to feed him dinner, do some stretching and just hang with those 80's tunes jammin' - maybe we'll have him in his bed or possibly out in his chair if his resting rate stays low.