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.

Mental

He’s doing great now that he and Mon can act as confidents to one another with the spoken word. I think you can imagine how painful it would be to be lying in bed and not be able to discuss life altering aspects with a better half. I know how difficult it would be for me to have Bridie yapping in my ear and making decisions for me while I tried to spell out letters of words with blinks of my eyes! Mon has endless patience for being at Mike’s bedside and remains a phenomenal support for him at this time. Their respectively family’s have rallied around and are helping to pick up the pieces when called upon. Ash is coping well with what must be a strange experience for someone her age- I suspect that it’s almost too much spotlight for a kiddy just trying to go about her business!

Visiting

Check out that section for when to visit. Just as a reminder, try not to drag a cold or flu into Mike’s close vicinity. He’s at risk of nasty lung sequelae if he cops a virus at the minute, in a state that renders his lungs defences at less than 100%. Once his swallow and cough are back to normal, he’ll deal with these challenges a lot better than at the moment. So if you’ve got the bug, just wait a few days before you go and visit.

We took an amateur video of Mike and Mon, which you can see below.

Best
Mitch