Help my father recover from his stroke

Well this therapy isn’t being provided by the hospital but mum heard about this and looked into it online. It wasn’t too expensive to buy a mirror box: (can’t say which site she bought one from – may not be this one) and she saw some videos including on youtube – yes my mum uses youtube!

Dad is now using this twice a day and mum has pointed out that if he doesn’t work on keeping his arm exercises up then a good hand won’t be much good with an arm that can’t do anything. He’s now started his arm exercises again as he has a little hope. He stopped doing them nearly 2 years ago.

My brother was very skeptical when this contraption arrived but tried to move his hands independently with one inside the box and the other outside and visible in the mirror and found that he really couldn’t (or so my mum says).

Hopefully this simple device will be of some benefit – only time will tell.

General info about Mirror Box:
Mirror Box Therapy is a treatment used for phantom limb pain, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), for rehabilitation after a stroke, and therapy following a hand or foot injury or surgery.

Mirror therapy was first described by a renowned American based Indian Neurologist Dr.V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition and Professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego.

Mirror box therapy works by utilising the visual input of the mirror image of the good limb to replace that of the missing limb to suppress the “upset” in the somatosensory cortex and thus reduce phantom pain and sensation.

He’s looking good apparently but mum has a lot of catching up to do as his medication list has significantly changed.

He is also having to retrain his bladder (as he was catheterised – this always happens) as it’s easy to get lazy when you’re in hospital and don’t have to hold it in to get to the toilet safely. Poor mum!

At least that is now over and things can start getting a little more back to normal in their house.

He spent 3 days in intensive care after the operation took longer than planned and ended up in a lot of pain. Morphine helped (and also gave him hallucinations of a friendly cat that would visit him and once let him stroke it). He then spent a couple of days in high dependency where he was recovering but really tired.

I visited him yesterday on the general ward and he looked great. He was a good colour, the pain had gone (except when he coughed) and wasn’t tired and had a good conversation for the few hours we were there. He had nearly finished a jigsaw too.

We found out that the faulty heart valve was supplied by a US company that has now changed its name (I wonder why? Avoiding international lawsuits?). It was also really good that he had the op when he did as apparently the valve was just being held on by a single stitch. Oh boy that could have been nasty.

Some good news is that his atrial fibrilation has gone. We speculate that this is because he has a working heart valve now and his heart doesn’t need to fight all the time just to work.

At least this time it’s planned.

He had heart surgery yesterday to replace a faulty replacement heart valve and my mum and brother saw him in intensive care last night. He was in surgery nearly 8 hours and mum would have been in a much worse state if the waiting room didn’t have a TV and Wimbledon tennis to distract her somewhat!

Just hope that he recovers as well as he did last time (November 07) when the heart valve was put in. Can’t believe that it failed as it came from a faulty batch. It’s bad enough to go through this once but twice is unnecessary. I also feel for all those who have also needed their faulty heart valve replacing.

This is not fair – but when has life ever been fair?

After nearly 3 years Dad is able to move his foot a little today for the first time since his stroke.

This is completely unexpected. We’re not expecting miraculous events and for him to be able to walk unaided but all progress is good. I’m not sure whether he can feel the foot or just move it but Mum said that he could flex the foot up and down by a easily visible amount. Mum also said that his foot looks a different shape and colour (no longer looking like a rubbery jelly-like foot the muscles must be starting to work) and has been changing shape for the past couple of weeks or so.

WOW!!!

Who would have thought it? Not me.

He has shown a few other signs of progress over the past few months. He has learned to use an old mobile phone – you know the type with few functions and no camera. Last year he could use just the last dialed number now he knows how to search through the address book and even check to see when his battery is running low.

It is a lot of progress considering the doctors said that most progress is made over the first 6 months with some further progress up to two years. Little did they know my Dad ;)

As we thought, dad needs heart surgery to replace his ‘new’ heart valve.

He goes into hospital in just over a couple of weeks as long as there’s a bed available. He recovered really well last time and astounded us all and we hope that as he’s stronger than he was last time he’ll recover well again.

Not sure whether he’ll want it or not but apparently the replacement valve that he was given in November 2007 may need replacing.

Well we think it does but given he now has mild heart failure and had a heart attack earlier this year we don’t know whether the surgeon will think it a good idea to put him under the knife again.

If it isn’t one thing then it’s another for him. He came home from his heart attack too soon and ended up being taken back a couple of weeks later for a further period of treatment as he wasn’t well at all – leg swelled up, blue lips, trouble breathing etc.

Hospitals should consider the whole patient not just the single symptom that caused them to be admitted in the first place.

I feel so sorry for him. If it’s not one thing then it’s another. He used to be so well and fit then it all changed so suddenly with a stroke.

At least he’s home now. The norovirus is almost out of his system and mum’s been coping (so far). The hospital wouldn’t let him stay in another night as he came in for chest pains and they’ve now gone and he had no medical need to stay (the care need isn’t valid enough).

He was taken into hospital on Friday with chest pains and as he has a history of some heart problems they kept him in, which he wasn’t too happy about.

He went in with a chest infection but they’ve been treating it aggressively and it has now cleared which has left him feeling much better.

Now the ward is closed as they have got winter vomiting virus (Norovirus) and my poor dad has it too. He’s got enough on his plate and am not sure whether he’ll have his tests as planned on Monday or they’ll keep the ward in isolation which will mean he has to stay in longer.

I wrote a couple of months ago about a problem with dad’s new heart valve.

There’s been further tests which have shown that nothing has changed and the surgeon at the specialist heart hospital didn’t want to see him again as the risks could be too high. Dad’s got stronger physically since his heart operation and he recovered from that one very well.

Now dad’s received a letter from the specialist heart hospital saying that the valve that was put in was most likely faulty (there are problems with most of the valves in a batch from which his came). Will the surgeon actually do anything when he sees him or will he just say that it’s best left as it is? Why can’t life be a little more straightforward sometimes?