Same old, same old...

By the time you have spent a few days in the hospital, things begin to settle in to a routine. As we move past the mid-point of the week we realize that we're starting to fall into the swing of the hospital schedule. The current plan is that Adam will be released on Saturday, but there are still a few things that will be finished up over the next day and a half.

Today Adam had an evaluation with the speech therapist, and she had some good suggestions for helping with times when he is having difficulties getting his thoughts out. He also finished up with the neuropsych evaluation which is a follow-up from the initial pre-surgery evaluation that took place last summer. They want to verify that the surgeries didn't have any negative effects on cognitive processing. He also had another round of adjustments to the DBS with Dr. Marks to try to find the best possible settings.

Tomorrow will likely bring some sessions with physical and speech therapists, as well as a brain scan called Magnetoencephalography (MEG). He originally had a MEG scan four years ago in Memphis, and so this time they will be able to compare the results to the previous test. It's a pretty amazing device, with a vault-like room that blocks out all kinds of outside interference. If you are interested, here is the link to the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoencephalography (yes, I know...a librarian citing a Wikipedia article...shameful!). They have only recently purchased and installed the MEG equipment and our doctor is curious to see how it works with a patient that already has a DBS installed. Hopefully it will be helpful in providing more information.

We're also planning on another meeting with Dr. Marks to discuss where things go from here. After the excitement of taking some steps and experiencing significant improvements in muscle tone and flexibility on Tuesday, things have pretty much reverted to the way that they had been prior to coming down for this visit. That was a real disappointment for all of us. When he tried different settings today on the DBS, Adam had another brief moment of improved tone, but it was only a short respite before everything returned once more to the previous state. We're not exactly sure where things stand currently, and what will be the plan as we move forward. Hopefully we will learn more tomorrow.

So...as we wind down towards the end of another hospital stay, we suspect that we may end this trip the way we have ended others, with many questions yet to be answered. This has been an interesting adventure, we are still learning much about the brain (and more specifically--Adam's brain), and certainly much about ourselves. Thanks for taking the journey with us!