By Lisa Ansay —
Taylor expressed concern Monday night that he was becoming confused about things; difficulty finding the intended keys on the keyboard, and as he put it, “having trouble following directions.”
By the time he was in speech therapy Wednesday afternoon, he was no longer able to tell you where he was, or what he was recovering from – could not remember there was an accident at all. And all got quiet. He just stopped talking.
From the Speech Therapist’s office we walked into ER, and within ten minutes (no exaggeration) he was getting a head CT.
It’s so difficult sometimes to tell what is what. Tuesday afternoon he had a great day: speech therapy was awesome, but getting into the car afterward gave him some trouble -which was weird.
From there, he had PT at the Mayo Clinic, and was tested on balance, strength and stamina. The physical therapist said Taylor tested higher in all categories than he has ever seen. When we got home after the Mayo Clinic, he had a tough time navigating (with verbal cues) around the house.
Fatigue? He did say he was tired, and fell asleep before dinnertime.
Wednesday morning an order was written for a sodium check, and we headed for speech therapy at Barrow Neurological Institute. His speech therapist agreed that he was not himself (he would go from talking perfectly to not at all) so I called his neurologist, who immediately suggested taking him into ER.
He was admitted to ICU from ER with a sodium level that would explain the confusion, but the head CT also found a small pocket of air near his brain to be investigated. This pocket has existed since previous reconstruction work, but surgeons want to be sure it is not getting any larger, and the scans are so far inconclusive.
They plan to keep him in ICU for a few days for more testing. If the sodium becomes stable and the consulting neurologist finds the small air pocket of no concern, he’ll be going home.
He is feeling better with rest, and is starting to want to get up and around.
