Out of ICU!

RantWoman stopped by to see Jana tonight after a visit to a relative in another nearby hospital. RantWoman is digesting Friday's exciting news of Jana's move out of ICU to a regular trauma surgery ward (whatever "regular trauma surgery ward" means). This move was straight into a room, bypassing some kind of stepdown ICU!

The move out of ICU has brought other big steps, a swallowing evaluation (improvement apparently still needed). physical therapy starting, and stretches of increasing length (EIGHT hours today!) sitting in a special chair. Today's email reported that Warren and Rosa took Jana and the special chair on quite an excursion around the hospital but wound up not being able to go out to one of the patios because the chair would not fit through the door.

RantWoman is amused to see that the trauma surger ward has double rooms about half the size of the double rooms on another ward RantWoman previously had occasion to visit. However, it is so nice that flowers and sweet pictures of loved ones on the wall are allowed. Jana also has a nice view.

Jana has been wearing her glasses. She says with them she sees things that were not there before. RantWoman could interpret that several ways but will simply note it.

Today Jana had a feeding tube. RantWoman remembers previously noticing something around Jana's nose that she took to be an oxygen cannula though the other friend visiting today said she had been there other times when mention was made of tube feeding. In any case, today Jana apparently had pulled out her feeding tube so she got fitted with the most spectacular white-glove-test-worthy sporty puffy white gloves, as if boxing is the next thing on her therapeutic regimen. RantWoman also noticed that Jana seemed to like to wave her gloved arms as if she were conducting something and that Jana sometimes rubbed the gloves along her mouth. RantWoman assumes this is because Jana's lips are chapped but could not tell for sure.

Jana's voice was clear though by the evening when Rantwoman visited she did nto talk much. RantWoman heard Jana cough a couple times and is glad the coughs sound smoother, clearer than previously.

One of the recent email posts about the move mentioned that in patients with brain injury there is sometimes a period of extreme agitation as the healing brain tries to put things back together. RantWoman has a cousin who, two months ago was involved in a multi-vehicle car accident. Accident was not cousin's fault; she emerged with a totaled car, a bad seat belt bruise and a lot of soft tissue trauma in her back and neck. She also regularly blogs about flashbacks and RantWoman would be very surprised if Jana is not having similar or much worse problems. Others have mentioned that she has begun asking what happened.

For no obvious reason related to Jana, RantWoman offers the follwing interesting item about an unexpected results of a stroke.

Vision Improves, Ability to speak French declines