Day 604

Thursday 12/22/22

Anel is stable and doing well.

Her CT last night showed no new bleeding. Her neuro assessments are either at the same baseline as yesterday or improving. Meaning her recovery is already underway. She’s moving forward. Nothing is digressing. Thank you, Jesus.

She is simply the sweetest ever. Today was a borage of doctors, nurse practitioners, and therapists. Everyone does their assessments individually, and then the ICU team does assessments every hour on the hour. That’s a lot of nose-touching and leg-lifting. She’s happy to oblige.

After the rush, I gave Anel the queen treatment. Toes to ears. When I pulled her facial mist out of the bag, her eyes got huge, and she said, “Wow.” LOL, she’s so cute. Speaking deficit aside, she’ll find a way to express her thoughts regarding her beauty products.

I want to express again that this stroke differs from the last one. Yes, Anel is in the ICU, and the brain bleeding was significant. I’m not discounting the seriousness of what she’s enduring. However, this stroke hasn’t affected primary functions such as body temperature, the ability to swallow, consciousness, breathing, etc. Her vitals are all very balanced on their own without medication or intervention. She’s awake, aware, eating, breathing, and pointing at her hand cream.

Her deficits are more centered around finding the right words to say and a lesser extent, comprehending questions. A simple example would be her trying to answer before a long question was complete. Another would be her mind being fixated on a word and using it to answer multiple questions. “What state do you live in?” “Texas.” “What’s your husband’s name?” Texas might come out again. Sometimes she hears the answer coming out and starts shaking her head no. Sometimes she doesn’t make the connection. Sometimes I holler from the corner of the room, “Hell yeah, just call me Tex for short.”

We’ve been here before, and we’ll get through it again with you supporting and loving on us. The little expressions of love mean the world to us.

Thank you, friends!