Angela's Blog

I have dubbed today Playful Angela Day

Ang spent four hours in the cardiac chair.   This means they roll her onto a bed with three seatbelts:  one at the bust, one at the hips, and one at the ankles and then sit her up.   So, we are busy reading, singing, talking and she is fidgeting.   All of a sudden she unsnaps the top seatbelt.   Thinking this is a fluke, I rebuckle it and wait.   Sure enough, the little scamp unbuckles it again and yet again....  OK by this time, I am clued in that she does not want the top seat belt buckled.

On our day goes.  

After her IV has completed, the nurse puts on her white boxing glove and lets her right arm roam free for a bit.   She is stretching and exploring and feeling everything.  The doc says she is in her tactile exploration phase and we can really see it.

After a bit, the glove comes off and she is loosely restrained.  The next thing I see is her right arm extending the fingers of her left arm just like we do for her exercises.   She was being so gentle with her fingers, it was touching to watch.

A bit later, she is playing with a bean bag fish that the nurses gave her in ICU.   She has been crunching that fish for days now but today she decides she wants to taste it.   In her mouth it goes.   She nibbles fin, tail, and nose almost gleefully.   I could not help but laugh out loud.

Finally, she is back in bed and settled down.  Has a bit of a nap and then Josh tells me to look.   She has snagged the fish's tag and is twirling the fish by the tag first in one direction and then in the opposite direction with the funniest little grin on her face.   Josh and I could only just marvel and the playfulness of the little imp.  

Thought you would enjoy sharing this.

Many of you have asked about the level of unconciousness and what it all means.   I can tell you that the information they gave us to read calls the scale the Glasgow Coma Scale.   The book I got explains the 10 levels from coma to "normal" and what to expect in each stage.   As I said earlier, Ang is considered to be between stage 4 and 5 moving towards 10.   

She is not 'awake'.   She does not always focus when she opens her eye (soon to be eyes because the swelling in the left eye receeds daily).  When she does focus it is for seconds at a time.   She is tracking more when the flashlight checks her eyes.   She has a lot more rapid eye movement when her eyes are closed.   

She vocalizes by making some sounds but the sounds are not decipherable (although there are moments when we believe we hear all kinds of things).

Love,

Teresa