Articulation Day!!!

Well we have had a busy month and a half since I last posted (sorry it's been so long!). Mike had his EMG on his arm on 12/21. It showed that the Brachial Plexus, the large branch of nerves that come down the side of the neck and extend out to the shoulder and arm, was injured as Dr. Horowitz and Kelsey had suspected. It also showed that the nerves extending down the arm had not regenerated YET. Nerves regenerate a whopping 1mm per day! Just think of how long the arm is. Some of the nerve roots were still intact down to the hand which explains why he's able to move the hand slightly along with moving the shoulder. This had the OT/PT staff very perplexed. Due to the results of the EMG, we decided to cut OT back to once a month so we could save those sessions for when he's needing to relearn how to do things with that arm. We are limited to 60 paid outpatient therapy visits per calendar year. And it doesn't matter if you've already met your out of pocket deductible for the year. 😒

Mike saw Dr. Roach the Neurosurgeon on 12/23 and got his Christmas present, no more neck brace! His neck was bothering him quite a bit afterwards so he invested in a neck pillow. This can help hold the head up giving the neck muscles a little break instead of needing to wear the dreaded neck brace for short periods of time.

We met Dr. Jakovich, the Physiatrist (Physical Medicine/PT/OT doctor), on 1/15. It's so tough meeting new people down here that haven't seen Mike from the beginning, know his whole story and see how far he's come. Mike does have some tone (tightened and shortened muscles) in his ankle and calf that prevent him from being able to flex it past 90 degrees and get the calf muscles stretched out. He said that Mike is a complex case with his simultaneous head, spinal cord and brachial plexus injuries. He does think that Mike would benefit from some Botox injections in his calf muscle to help them relax a little. He believes that these will be covered by insurance. If not, I guess we meet his out of pocket max for the year in February! 😉

Mike got to go on an ice fishing trip from Wed evening to Sun evening with some buddies. It was good for him to have some "normalcy" and for me to get a little bit of much needed respite. He had a great time and, most importantly, came home safe. Thank you to all the fishing guys for keeping an eye on him! It really gave me peace of mind and the ability to relax!

On to the big news for today. We went up to Coon Rapids to see Alicia from Winkley Orthotics. He got his AFO brace articulated today!! Pretty much that means that they cut his AFO, hinged it and gave him a bendy ankle. It's the next step towards getting back to "normal". Now that he has more flexibility in the ankle, the Botox will work even better. We have to call the clinic to get that scheduled, but will likely happen in the next few weeks. After that, we will likely cut back to PT 2 times a week instead of 3 that we're doing now. We would have a Home Exercise Program that we would be doing on the non-PT days to help keep things moving along. This will save on the visits so that OT has more to work with when the arm starts coming back more. If we have to go more than the 60 visits and have to pay for those, then that's what we have to do to get Mike back to his former glory.

Thank you so much everyone for your continued thoughts and prayers! Keep those prayers coming as we can never get too many of those. We cannot say Thank You enough for everything everyone has done for us. It may have been something small or just saying prayers, but it doesn't have to be big to make a huge difference. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

#StudtmannStrong