By Lisa Ansay —
Taylor has been awake during the day for the past few. He has PT/OT in the mornings and yesterday he did stand, with a little help from his team. And then he wanted to do it again! He is a fighter, for sure.
The right side of his face is still a bit quiet, but he does have movement. The cranial nerves that govern those parts including eye, lid, lips, brow and nasolabial muscles are healing, and with work they are coming back. Speech therapy is daily as well, and he is managing to work with (and around) some of those sleepier muscles in his face that make it tough for him to shape words. For those that require the lip movement for B, P, M, etc; we search for other words that don’t require lips to shape the sounds (for now) and for more urgent matters such as pain levels, hand signals and pointing works best (for now). Strong swallowing and speaking is his path to green chili cheeseburgers, and pizza.
There are still a few unanswered questions in the medical stuff, but doctors are with him daily to resolve those issues. And he has a consult today with the plastic surgeon to follow-up on the work already done, and identify a path forward for what remains. He complains of pain in his jaw more than his head, it seems.
Music is played often in his room, and he (we) have been singing quite a bit (medical staff included). I am super stoked to know he still knows all the words. Yesterday afternoon it was Hotel California, a little Jason Aldean (a cappella with all of us) and Bohemian Rhapsody (he definitely knows more of the words to that one than I do), and Eminem among others. He has always been quite the singer, and I must admit the pitch-perfect, high volume voice control brought tears to all of our eyes. Who needs lips!
There are a few appointments today for him, so if there’s any new info there will be another post.
Love love love and many hugs.
