spence had lots of PT today,he walked with a cane again, although a bit further today. they are actually giving him homework. he has 3 worksheets he has to do over the weekend before his speech therapy on monday. i guess better than preparing for the MCAS.
the docs are also working on his dizzy spells (i told them that its hereditary his mother is dizzy all the time, lol) actually something about his eyes not recentering quick enough which makes things not in focus. we are working on getting the contacts in but it is hard for spence to do it one handed.
donna and i have to give a shout out to spencer's siblings,olivia and carter. they have been wonderful. i never realized the bond the 3 of them shared,but in the last couple of weeks it has become quite apparent. the secret handshakes with carter and his nightly calls to liv are only the start of how deep they go. if you see them in school or around town give them a hug,high five,peace out or whatever to let them know you are thinking of them too.
i guess prayers and good thoughts all around, and right back at you!

well spence did it,he got the mohawk today. i think it needs a little gel but i am sure that will be taken care of.
a busy day for him. he walked with a cane for the first time. that made his week for him. his floor then had a scavenger hunt thru MGH. they had 2 teams to hunt for various items. spence's team did not win, (as Mrs Doherty's class has told him) they are all winners. the time off the floor was well worth it. their next projects are to make pizza and ice cream. i may wait on that taste test.

spence was in great spirits today, even though it was at my expense. after dropping off his grandmother,brother and friend i went to the park the car. being the last one there i went to his room to find it empty. i checked the dining room: empty,PT room: empty,computer room: empty. the little buggger convinced his mom to take him to the hospital cafeteria. of course no note or anything for his dad. whats that saying about PAYBACK!!! it was well worth the laughs that were coming from him.
he met his tutor (hopefully that will start soon) and she told him that she has never tutored anyone in latin. irony is ,at one time she was a latin teacher. i think she is more excited than he is. of course it won't be the same as Mr Scully's class. (olivia made me put that in there,something about extra points on her next test).
tomorrow is haircut day,spence says he wants a mohawk. it will be interesting to see if he goes thru with it.

to everyone: Thank you for all the love and support. Keep it coming.

As donna mentioned in the last post "those little things add up". Sometimes when you are there every day you don't notice as much. A couple of comments from his friends that last couple of days have been "wow,now that i see you sitting up you look like spence" and "you sound like spence now". this to us is awesome.
Tonight at dinner (and by the way he had his mom's cooking which are i am sure is the reason why), i saw some of that improvement. even though he was exhausted from PT,OT,ST,the best ST, he laughed and joked with us more than since he has been in the hospital. Or maybe it was getting off the floor today, to those who have been there you now what i mean, but i took him to the Stars Wars tube today. (It is a hall connecting MGH to Spaulding). Or maybe it was spence having his video camera, he taped the orthopedist who took a mold of his left leg so he could make a brace (and also asked him 201 questions),his nurse dacia,his roommate greg, and then he found out his speech therapist just bought a mac so she could do movies. what the heck they were talking about went over my head, adobe this, final cut this etc,etc,.
Anyway as I started its the little things adding up.:blog posts,cards,visits,prayers,messages thru friends,e-mails, keep'em um coming because i know this keeps spencer strong.

There is much to say about all the little things Spencer has done in the last 2 days, just rest asure he keeps on kicking butt every day. and with all the support of family, FRIENDS {he is so lucky to have the friends he has} and prayers all the little things add up. Thank you all so much for the support you have given us.

does anyone know this handsome dude? spence grew to 7 feet tall (trick photography ?). this is spence out walking with Neera his physical therapist. we won't make fun of his granny knee-high stockings, actually he had a few dollar bills in them! these few steps are what he is most proud of at this point. oh and the fact the he no longer has to have pureed food. the last 2 days he has had spaghetti and meatballs. of course he will tell you its nothing like his mom's (big surprise,huh!) but good nonetheless. i think just the solid food is awesome. the one other thing he wanted was Dr. Pepper,which he got, but then told me i could go to wal-mart and buy Dr Thunder for 30 cents cheaper. just a random thought i guess? to all the friends and family who visited this week, you know how much he loves your visits. i know with school vacation over it will be much harder,but if anyone needs a ride,directions etc let us know.
a new ritual for spence is having the comments from this blog read to him at bedtime,actually we read them to him 2-3 times a day. but at bedtime especially is calming to him. SO KEEP'EM COMING

spencer took a few steps during physical therapy today. not the most graceful ones but something he is proud of. he had more speech therapy also, alot of memory stuff,i guess to try to get him to process info. tedious but necessary. He had an eye exam today,the right eye is good but left eye not so good. we are hoping his peripheral vision improves on the left side but thats a wait and see.
either he won the ward bingo game or someone smuggled contraband in. i found 3 cases of real pudding in his room. anyone willing to fess up?
i will keep you posted on anything this weekend

i have been told that some of you have tried to post a comment but nothing shows up. (actually happened to me too.) try this. when you go to the blog,you can read the comments and a box shows up saying leave message or comment. don't do anything there. you have to establish a google account and sign in first. it is free and no c.c. needed, you'll have to make a user name and password. (save this). once this is done, go back and sign in using your user name and password and then you should be able to post a message. Great to see a message from the Sunshine Girls.

oops, guess i have been slacking. whats been going on the last 3 days?

its been a lot of little things. spence has been doing PT to try to build upper body strength thru his trunk. this will give him the basis to start working on his left side. he did take a couple of steps on tuesday though. (he is estatic about this). he is also been working with the speech therapist and he's moving both his left and right side of his mouth. it is much easier to understand him now. he still gets tired easily as the health workers try to push him, but its funny how he gets a second wind when his friends have visited this week. he told me to write a thank you to nana for his homemade heating pack.
by far his favorite thing to do in the hospital is when we read him the post's on this blog,the cards in the mail,or letters from his favorite 1st grade class or his 2 favorite classes from florida. i think just hearing all these people care for him,are pulling for him,and praying for him ,gives him just a little bit more strength to keep up the hard work.

so keep'em coming

not much going on medically during the weekend. a little speech therapy,a little occupational therapy. i believe there was alot of emotional therapy though. to the friends who visited this weekend that was wonderful, spence seems to perk up so much when you guys are around. but do forgive his bluntness. i guess we have to make a rule that what he says at spaulding rehab stays at spaulding rehab.
a couple of his favorites things (isn't that a disney song) are when his mother and i read him his cards or when we read the comments from the blog. spence can get into a wheelchair (in fact they encourage it) and make it to the common room where they have a computer. it is still dial up but he can't wait to hear the well wishes. that being said, if you haven't left a message in awhile now is a good time, and those who haven't please do so. if you are worried that he doesn't know you, it does not matter, a little message can explain. (i.e. from thelma's quilting group,etc etc).
and of course lastly,keep the prayers and positive thoughts going.

2/15/08. we can mark this as another begining point. during physical therapy spencer stood for the 1st time on his own. he had a couple of things to help balance him and he was on his right leg only but we will take it. he is trying his own version of PT too, he likes to constantly rub his left hand and move his left leg with the right one. i believe he is trying to speed up the process. we constantly have to tell him to relax and let the therapists do their job.
oh, and he did admit he misses school, i think the social part and not necessarily the work part or the getting up at 6 am part.

spencer was moved today to begin the long road back to recovery. he is now going to have an hour of physical,occupational, and speech therapy every day. plus whatever else they can think of to keep him going. he is in the mass eye and ear building, 10th floor now. room 17 i believe. if you plan to visit- between 6 and 8 pm is usually good,this way he is back in his room after all his sessions.
thank you again for all the cards and well wishes, and keep the prayers going

spence had his stitches taken out today and is no longer on the heart monitor. the plan right now is to move him to a rehab floor. if all goes well this will be done wednesday morning. he will be going to the spaulding rehab pedi unit. this is still part of mass general hosp but the unit is actually in the mass eye and ear building. his mom and i visited the floor today and its looks like it will be good for him. there is only 15-16 beds on the unit and there are 5-6 teens with similar injuries. they have different periods for the different therapies and they work to get the kids back on track with their schoolwork. i don't know if they have had anyone tackle AP calculus or Latin yet but we will soon find out.

spence made it from the bed to the chair and all the way to the common area today. i think those 4 walls were closing in on him. the common area is great,it has a view of the boston skyline in 2-3 different directions. he looked good today,swelling in his head is going down. its his eyes and his half smile that tell me he is headed in the right directed though.

weekends at the hospital- not much goes on,pretty much a skeleton crew only. Spence did get to sit in a chair today, they have to lift him up with a trapeze and swing him to go from the bed to chair. kinda funny the production it can take to go 2 feet,but we will take what we can get. he is starting to eat semi-solid food. mashed potatoes,pudding etc.

everyday we see a little improvement so we know he is trying his best. Once again, thank you for all the well wishes and keep them coming.

Friday was a big day for Spencer, he sat up in an xray machine and they gave him things to swallow and watched where it went, if it was good, he could have the tube out of his nose and start to take mushy foods. he passed the test, and the nose tube came out, then he asked if he could watch a copy of it on the computer, they said NO ONE had ever asked to see that before so they said they would try! About 2 hours later Julie his speach therapist came to his room and he watched the tape of his test! Only Spencer would want to do that! Then when he came back to his room PT was there. Oh ya... spencer hasn't slept in 3 days so finally with a little help he took a nap.

spence was moved from the ICU to another floor tonight. this is where they will start with the rehabiltation to try to get his left side going. got a story to share,actually had a couple but this is the only printable one.

we will start with morphine is a wonderful thing. Carter had brought his report card in (straight A's) and spencer's doctor wanted to see it. spence gave him the report card and when the nurse came in the doc told her it was his grades from spence. to which spence replied "oh yeah i just printed it out of my ass"

Hey everyone! Last night (Feb. 4th), Spencer's breathing tube was removed. He was having trouble at first breathing on his own but he's doing good now. He's been talking up a storm and even tried to solve his rubik's cube with one hand. Continue to keep Spence in your prayers and good thoughts!

spence had another machine removed today. it was one to cool his body temp while it had warm air to keep his skin warm. actually a cool idea but he hated it and i dont blame him. unfortunately his temp rose after stopping this so we will see what happens. I think the big one for him is the breathing tube,which does not allow him to talk and they have to keep him sedated to use. I could sense a frustration with him today.
We were warned this was going to be a long process so we are happy with any progress on the postivie side. It may be baby steps but we will take them with a smile.

To everyone: Thank you for all you've done and god bless.

Today, Spencer looked great ! His brain monitor was taken out and he no longer looks like Tinky Winky (purple teletubbie). He has been opening his eyes more and staying awake a little longer each day. He still has the breathing tube in but they are slowly taking him off it. He loves hearing what people have been saying on the blog and he really misses everyone. Keep the messages and prayers coming!
PS If anyone has some good pictures of faces of friends/family drop them off at our house or give them to Liv at school. Thanks!

the roller coaster goes on

the first night we were at the hospital we warned or at least given a heads up, about the up and downs of recovery by the the wife of a gentlemen who had been there 16 days. the last 2 days have both and up and down.

thursday night into friday morning we were hoping the docs would take out spence's breathing tube. sometime late friday morning he had trouble breathing,something about his O2 coming in but his lungs not able to prosess it. the docs feared he may have clots in his lungs, not nearly as severe as having one in your carotid artery, but no picnic either. They inject dyes and take pictures by computer to screen for this. We have not gotten the full results back yet but all prelimary pictures show that as far as clots go he is clear. What he does have though is pneumonia in both lungs. Sounds SUCKY but it is better than clots and actually common in hospital patients who are not up and about. Because he is lying 24/7 that is where everything settles.

I know some of his friends wanted to visit this weekend but because of this pneumonia that is not a good idea. i promise i will let you know when it is time.

They did one other test today to test his heart called a TEE (and no it didn't involve a golf ball) to see if maybe thats where the blood clot came from. I saw the doc who did this test today around mid afternoon who told me that the results of the test showed he had a perfect heart.
I had to tell him, Well DUH!!! all you needed to do was look at the postings on his blog to realize he has a perfect heart.

Myself,spence's mom,brother,sister, and extended friends and family love reading your get well wishes and comments. Please keep them going and yeah the prayers and good thoughts too.

Last night David again loosed up the restraint and not only did we get hugs, as a joke my mom asked him to scratch her back and he did! Banannie and Spencer since he was little have always scratched each others backs! As usual... Spencer is comforting us!