Hi. Mike had bad night with severe neck pain. He is asleep now but visitors later should be OK. Thanks Mon

Hi Crew,
well, the man is on the mend. Slowly but surely. We visited Mike again yesterday in the spinal ward of the Austin, where he has a little way to go yet before he can get to the rehab ward.

Physical

Mike has his trachy out, which is a step in the right direction for getting to rehab. Unfortunately, he is having an issue with his swallow, which means he will be delayed in the spinal unit until they can get to the bottom of this problem. The nerves controlling swallowing and it’s co-ordination emanate from much higher than Mike had damaged in his accident (they come from the brainstem, and are called cranial nerves). You’ll notice that his voice has a slight hoarseness and changed character when you visit him. This should resolve with time, along with the swallow. The nerves which control swallowing may have been bruised during the surgery which fixed the bony damage to his neck. Mike has a speech therapist helping him with his swallow, and they’re doing all sorts of weird and wonderful investigations like passing a camera into the back of his throat to watch the muscles work! Lucky Mike!

In the meantime, he’s working on a whole lot of other aspects of his recovery- physiotherapy especially. You can read in the other updates the fun and games he’s had trying to control a wheelchair with an unseen and unfeeling hand. He is using the muscles of his shoulder to control the chair through his hand being strapped to a cradle. Mike reports the concentration required for this fine control to be difficult and exhausting! At this stage, he has movement of his biceps, but without the triceps to help counter that muscle he has problems placing his hand where he wants to. The analogous stage for Mike at the minute is learning to change gears- he’s got all the gross motor control to move a gear stick, but has to learn to be smooth to change gears without grinding them! It’s a frustrating time- but he’s got the motivation and courage of a lion.

Additionally Mike has been trying to sleep in a hard collar and unable to have his bed head raised above 45 degrees without said collar. These collars are very uncomfortable, but it may be the case that he can do without in the near future (according to Mike). I’m not sure if that was wishful thinking or a near reality, if there is a cracked bone high in his neck to protect, it may be a few more weeks with the collar to come.

(continue reading…)