I had a conference call with Dennis's doctors and therapist today at Brooks. They are all very excited about Dennis's progress this past week. He has improved in some areas to minimum assistance which is fantastic after only seven days of therapy. Minimum assistance usually only happens in your last week of therapy and Dennis still has three and half weeks to go. His muscle tone has increased the most and he is able to hold his right leg up off the floor without any assistance. An excercise that he has been doing on a daily basis is using the stationary bicycle that attaches electrodes to the muscles on his legs. The bike is motorized so even if you can't push the petals it does it for you. Today was the first time that Dennis was able to pedal on his own without any assistance and even got to maximum speeds. I have also noticed this week that he is much stronger in his core and not as wobbly. He is able to move a little more freely in bed and doesn't need me as much to move his legs or get him water, etc. The therapist are still working on his blood pressure bottoming out. Who knew that it would be his blood pressure holding him back from walking. His therapist are going to concentrate the rest of the week on getting his body use to being upright. They typically use a harness to suspended Dennis a few feet in the air while monitoring his blood pressure. He hasn't been able to stay up for very long before he gets dizzy. Unfortunately, there is nothing that we can do, but let the body work it out on its own.
He is doing some recreational therapy and met a lady a few doors down from his room that has a similar to disease to Dennis's. He played bocci ball with her today in the courtyard and seems to have found someone to talk to who knows exactly what he is going through. Keep us in your prayers. Our fight is just beginning, but we know this is just a small bump in a very, long, happy road.
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