[Magdalen] Janice update; a modest milestone

[thedonboyd at austin.rr.com]

JANICE UPDATE 11 JANUARY 2016: This week Janice has continued to show remarkable progress. She still has tubes attached to her body but is regaining the strength she will need to do without them. She's able to breathe a higher proportion of room air:supplemental oxygen all the time, with 100% room air some of the time; she's making progress on swallowing which will move her toward normal eating and removal of the tube the puts Ensure directly into her stomach; she's gaining strength that will enable her to get to and from the bathroom and on and off the toilet that will allow removal of the indwelling Foley catheter.

This week she has walked (my estimate) 180-200 feet several times each day; she has swallowed cold liquids, ice cream, and mashed potatoes successfully several dozen times with no coughing or choking; and she has begun exercises that strengthen muscles in her thighs and upper arms. In all of these the therapists report that she is gaining more rapidly than they would have predicted for a person of her age with the kind of injuries she has sustained.

Pain in her broken neck is still a problem; a dull achy pain is never completely gone and the doctor says that only the passage of time (another four or five months) will eliminate that. Drugs sufficient to cover it completely would so sedate her that she'd be immobilized. (My word, not his.) The sharp stabbing sort of pain is now mostly controlled although as I've said in the past she gets a twinge of it if she turns her head in a certain way. I gather this is expected to improve sooner than the other.  

MILESTONE:  Janice and I completed a year of continuous sobriety a few days ago, TBTG.