Hi All,

Apologies for the lack of comments in the last few days…. a couple of good and busy days, but a little set back today.

The swallow seems to be coming along OK but with the gastro last night / today, the scope test to give an official verdict has been delayed until tomorrow.

Mike had a good day yesterday with two sessions in the chair. He drove the chair by himself and will graduate to his own chair tomorrow so hopefully will spend some more time upright.

Most importantly Mike managed a “whizzy woo” spin around in his wheel chair — the smile on Ash’s face was worth a million dollars.

A huge thankyou to Telstra for organising a 3G card to get me online at the hospital which is fantastic.

Also a big thankyou to Sam and Jenny Bailey. You might remember their Australian Story episode. I have struggled to put the copy of ‘Head over Heels’ down since it arrived.

Finally, the usual huge thankyou to all the staff at the austin – you are all amazing and we cannot thank you enough.

Tomorrow will be quite busy with the scope and kinesio session – will give update tomorrow when we see if he keeps any “food” down tonight.

Thanks to everyone for your messages of support, for the visits that keep Mike’s spirits up and for respecting when he just needs to let his body heal itself.

Thanks,
Mon.

Hi.  Mike really sick today.  High temperature, lots of tests.  No visitors today please.  Thanks Monica

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.

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Hi All,Naant and I saw Michael, Mon, Lesley and Bruce yesterday on the spinal ward. Overall, my impression is that Forbesy is actually doing quite well. His mood seemed high and he was having increasing awareness of which muscles and skin areas had retained function.

Physically, he has had a roughish week with a few minor setbacks. The metabolism of a young, super-fit male is not something that is easy to estimate and Forbesy has probably not been getting quite enough fluid and nasogastric foods for the first few days on the spinal unit. Consequently, he was fatigued, somewhat light headed when he sat up, and felt generally sub-par. This has been corrected and he was actually a lot better yesterday.

The tracheostomy is out and Michael is talking freely. His swallowing however, is not yet safe. We all “micro-aspirate” to some degree, where fluid and even the occasional bit of foodstuff enter the airways during day to day life. This is not a problem when you can cough and clear the fluid/food from your airway, but becomes a problem when either excessive amounts are aspirated, or you are unable to cough it up. Chest infections can result.

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Thanks to Jo Mortimore for sending through these photos of Mike and the family. Click the images to see larger versions.