more news from Kris

Here's some more news from Kris (she posted to CaringBridge, but it didn't seem to make it to the mailing list - sorry - I'll try to keep a watch and copy to here as often as I can).

Kris, you're a real trooper! Keep hanging in there.

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From: Kris
THURSDAY, JULY 03, 2008 03:32 AM, CDT
When I left the hospital last night (around 7pm), Paul had just had another neurological exam. Basically, this consists of taking off the medication that is keeping him sedated for a while and then trying to get Paul to react to commands. Sometimes, the nurses yell (we have to speak very loudly to him because we are not sure how much fluid there is in his ears) commands such as "wiggle your toes", "raise your thumb on your right hand", etc. Paul is able to move all of his limbs, though he is less responsive with his right side (which make sense because most of the brain swelling is on the left side, and that is the side of the brain that controls the right side of his body). It is not always clear when Paul is responding to a command and when he is just moving his body because of some other stimulus (e.g., we don't know how much pain he is in, so he may just be reacting to some unknown internal pain). When the nurses want to try to get a more definitive response, they sometimes hold down one arm, pinch his ear lobe, and ask him to try to stop them with his other arm. He is responding to these tests in a limited way.
All in all, it is very encouraging that he is able to control as much movement as he is right now. And since there is still some swelling in his brain, it is premature to read too much into the results of the test, but we are cautiously optimistic about the progress he has made just in one day.
Another test that was performed measured how much his body is able to self-regulate. They hooked Paul up to some complicated machine that measured how is blood pressure, temperature, and other vitals reacted when they manipulated his body. The nurses who ran this machine were not very helpful in explaining what was going on, so I'm not really sure what all was tested. However, at one point, they had some cuffs wrapped around his legs. They looked like very large blood pressure cuffs that were wrapped around his upper leg. The nurse pumped air into the cuffs to squeeze his legs. His blood pressure initially went up, then slowly settled back down into the range it had been in before they squeezed his legs. Once is BP settled, the let the air out of the cuffs to let the blood flow back into his legs. His BP initially went down, but then stabilized again. My impression was that this is exactly what they were hoping for. The end results was that his report said that his auto-response system was somewhat impaired, but that his doing some self-regulating. Once again, this is encouraging. He still has a lot of swelling, so they weren't expecting him to pass this test 100%.
When I left the hospital, Paul was in the very capable hands of Ann and Robin (his nurses), and Matt. Matt was going to keep him company for the first half of the night, and then Saint Landy was going to drive in to stay with Paul for the rest of the night.
I know I will be thanking people for years to come around this event. I know that I will not be able to thank everyone; there are so many people doing so many wonderful things that I am not even aware of. But for today. Just in the course of the past two days, we have had such an amazing outpouring of love and help. Four people stopped by to deliver food to the hospital yesterday (Jim, Randy, May, and Trish), and two more brought food to Susan and Hal's house (Judy and Barb and Ed) and kept the girls company so that we could all be at the hospital. I have many of offers of help with kids, errands, mowing (!) and all the other minutae. Please know that I appreciate every one of your offers, even if I do not take you up on it (or even acknowledge it). I am trying to respond to as many people as I can, but I cannot keep up with all of the wonderful offers and well-wishes. My hope is that you will all follow Paul's progress through this website, as this will be my primarly mechanism for keeping everyone informed of what his happening in both Paul's life and all the wonderful people around him.
On that note, the girls are holding up well. They are attending a theatre camp this week and next. They will perform a version of Cinderella next week. I am thankful that they are engaged in an activity that they enjoy so much. It is wonderful to come home each day and hear about everything they did at camp that day.
I am holding up too. Thanks to everyone who is also trying to take care of me. This is a very awful situation, but I have so much love and support surrounding me, that my burden is considerably lighter than it might have been.
Okay, that's probably enough for one night (morning?). I'm going to try to go back to sleep now ;-)