Paul update - Day 15

Day 15 – Thursday 27 November

We picked Mark up this morning and arrived at the hospital just after 12 to find Paul sitting up in a chair eating his lunch – pasta shells in a savoury tomato sauce – yummy! He was managing very well but the nurses were surprised that he was eating at all because apparently they had to take the box of sweets away from him this morning as he was slowly working his way through the entire tin!

He doesn’t look terribly comfortable in the chair so we spoke to the physiotherapist who said that after 2 weeks in bed he is generally quite weak, but especially around his middle and neck and back; we have to take him some trainers in tomorrow and they will get him into the gym to do some exercises to strengthen him up.

After lunch he dozed off again (bit of a pattern emerging here......) and so we nipped down for a cup of tea. When we got back he was sat up chatting to Euan about Scouts, Iceland and all the things that they had done. Paul was smiling and happy so obviously his long term memory is still there. He still has trouble with short term memory – any of you that have read Richard Hammond’s book will know that this is quite common after a head injury - so he keeps asking the same questions and even if you give him the answer he might ask the same question again shortly afterwards. I think the trick is to just answer the question as though he has asked it for the first time; hopefully his short term memory will improve with time.

Later in the afternoon they came and fitted Paul into a wheelchair and just as they finished Jim (who works at the Airport) popped in to see him and then Andrew and Aaron popped in again so he sat in the dayroom for a while and then we managed to get him downstairs to the coffee shop for a drink and a change of scenery which he enjoyed. This tired him out though and when we got back.....yup, he had a nap!

We had to fill in a questionnaire for the speech therapist listing all of his interests and activities so that she has something to chat to him about, so hopefully that should start in the next day or so. His speech is improving every day so with this specialist help hopefully it should return to normal before too long.

A nurse from the Maidencraig Rehabilitation Unit at Woodend also came to speak to us this afternoon as he has been referred there and might be moved as soon as next week. Paul’s neurosurgeon is away until Monday so I guess he will chat to us Monday or Tuesday about the results of the MRI scan that he had yesterday and we will probably find out then when they plan to move him. I think this will be much better for Paul – there are only about 16 people there and there is specialist care to help Paul through the next stage of his recovery. Hopefully parking will be easier as well! I will try and let you all know in advance when he will be moved and what the visiting hours are – as far as we know it is quite flexible and depends largely on what Paul will be doing, so we may not know until the day before what is planned, but we will try and let you all know.

So, another good day but a tiring one for Paul!

PS He has never eaten Dairylea cheese or jacket potato skins in his life, but he does now!