Both dad and I agree that it is crazy to think he has been home for two weeks already.  He had originally thought time would move by so slowly, but it has been the opposite!

For the past two weeks, dad has had his calendar filled with lab work, doctor appointments, and therapy sessions.  Well, and hotdish drop-offs as well (which he SO very much loves and appreciates).  So far everything is going really well for him.

He is, for the most part, able to move independently around the home.  His physical abilities are stellar.  So much so, that he was able to stop doing physical therapy right away!  We are still cautious when he is outside, especially with the ice and snow now, but he hardly has to use a cane inside and uses it outside mostly as a "just in case" scenario.  He stopped using the walker almost immediately!  He was able to walk all the way down to his woodpile and he has also traversed his driveway to get the mail one time.  Still no stairs, though.  That is a long-term goal and not something he will be able to attempt until his eyesight is better.  

This means the focus of his therapies is on recovering his eyesight and short-term memory.  He has occupational (for his eyes) and speech (for his brain) therapy sessions each week.

We had a very good checkup appointment with his Hematology doctor today as well.

Blood Pressure Update:  So far dad's blood pressure has remained stable.  Maybe a tad bit higher than they would like to see for general overall health, but they are giving him a target range of 130s-140s.  They want to see him not exceed more than 149 on a consistent basis.  If we find his blood pressure to be anything 160 or above, we are to call in right away.

Platelet Update:  Upon leaving the hospital, they decreased the steroids dad was taking.  However, quickly found that his platelets dropped substantially.  Therefore,  they bumped him right back up to the larger dose.  Now, after a couple of blood checks and a bit of time later, hematology is comfortable dropping him back down to the smaller dose.  He will continue to have weekly blood draws to check his platelet levels.  As long as they remain stable, they will look to start decreasing the steroids by about 10 mg every two weeks until (hopefully) he is not taking them at all.  They believe his platelet baseline is a level of 40 (normal is 150 or more, but based on dad's medical history, it seems he has always lived with low platelets).  Therefore, the long-term plan is to get dad back to a stable baseline (for him) without steroids and then move forward seeing if there is anything they can do to try and continue to increase his platelets in a different way.  Dad's hematology doctor is going to touch base with the neurology team to determine how long (from their perspective) they like to monitor things.  She said neuro likes to see a patient have no additional reoccurrence of bleeding for one to three months.  Hematology may need to continue to work with him past this time, but some of the restrictions and appointments and lab work would ease up for him a bit after that amount of time has passed.

Eyesight Update:  I'm not going to sugarcoat it.  Dad really, really dislikes his therapies.  He's doing them because it is what the doctors say needs to be done to help get his eyesight back.  But it has been a constant battle with him to continue to go.  With that being said, he does still give his best effort when he is there and his eyesight is slowly getting better.  They gave him an estimate of 6 months for healing.....with therapy.  His writing and reading abilities are also improving.  Just today he wrote something down in his signature cursive writing rather than the big block letters he was writing with a week ago.

Care Update:  In super good news, I got dad's at-home blood pressure machine working this morning.  Tam has another option on the way, though, because the machine he has always gave him troubles.  This is good news because part of gaining his full independence back is to show that his blood pressure remains down and steady along with his platelets remaining stable.  Because he is moving around so great on his own, it isn't as much of a risk for him to fall any longer because of his physical strength.  The risk now is that his blood pressure would spike again causing another brain bleed.  That is an incidence that would require immediate emergency care, especially because the brain bleed could cause him to become disoriented, fall, etc., and not be able to call for help.  If he were home by himself, that could be lethal.  So, for now, someone needs to be here with him overnight, but he can have intermittent breaks of 1-2 hours by himself alone at home during the day.  If his blood pressure remains steady over the next couple of weeks AND his platelets remain stable with today's decrease in steroids, we can increase the amount of intermittent time alone during the day.  After another bit of time showing steady blood levels, we can start to discuss no care during the day, but still overnight.  Eventually, we will get to the point that someone doesn't need to "live" here with dad, but it really is a matter of giving him time.  

Dad is also not getting as tired throughout the day.  However, he is still having really sporadic sleeping at night.  Because of the steroids, he is retaining A LOT of water, and he is up to the bathroom every couple of hours.  He says he is just going to accept it for now knowing that it will eventually change.  He is really looking forward to a solid 8 hours of sleep in a row.

With all of this being said, dad is feeling more up for visitors he says!  If you'd like to stop in and visit with dad, there's a cozy chair waiting at the table and he will brew you a cup of coffee in his fancy new Keurig (his request).  However, we would like to ask that if coming inside for a visit, that you wear a mask.