Backwards by 3’s is forward!

Yesterday Wiley got a full workout by the physical therapist (PT), occupational therapist (OT) and speech therapist (whom I’ve never heard called an ST). Arm exercises, leg exercises, hand-eye coordination exercises, with a few cognitive tests thrown in to boot.

He was given a sheet of paper with an oval on it and asked to draw a picture of himself. He added a simple set of lines for eyes, nose, mouth. (Yes, symmetrically arranged!) “Do you want to add some more?” He provided more detail to represent a more three- dimensional set of those features, carefully added some ears, and then felt his head with one hand. Next he added scalp stubble. “Want to add any more of yourself?” Then came a shirt, arms, shorts, legs, and shoes. (“Are you an artist?” “I draw some.”) Lastly, he meticulously added two hands, each with seven fingers. It was a great picture that showed Wiley’s great capacity for thinking, executing (no one-sided neglect), and remarkably good hand-eye coordination for his state… and one of the little hiccups that show up even when everything else about his brain seems to be working just fine. (The therapist did break it to him that he had had a slight mishap with the finger count, but that he had done a wonderful job with the drawing.)

There were also a number of memory questions posed to Wiley yesterday: Did he know what month it was? “Yes, August.” The day? Not really sure; “Maybe the 18th?” (Pretty darn close; remarkably so, considering how he’s spent the last week and a half). The year? “2007.” Did he know where he was? “It seems like UC Santa Cruz” (the last place he spent a chunk of time away from home), “in a medical facility.” No, Santa Rosa, at Memorial Hospital. Did he know why he was there? “I hurt my head.” Did he know how? “In a skateboarding accident.” (That was the first time he’d replied correctly on that one!) Could he tell the therapist something particular about his Grandma Linda? “That’s not her natural hair color.”

Another challenge: “Wiley, I want you to count back from 20 by 3’s, and stop when you run out of numbers.” He closed his eyes and was quiet for a long time. “How are you doing there, Wiley?” “I’m done,” he replied.

(After she explained that he needed to count out loud, he proceeded to do so without a hitch.)

The look of the next couple of weeks is something like this. Wiley will get his bone flap in maybe Monday of next week. They’ll keep him at the hospital for a few days to make sure there are no infections or other surprises. Then he’ll head off to a rehab program, expected to be the one in Santa Clara, which has a very well-respected brain trauma rehab program and a patient population that includes other teens, which seems like a really helpful part of any rehab program for Wiley. (The one locally in Santa Rosa doesn’t handle patients under 17, pediatric cases.)

In the meantime, the rehab staff that work with Memorial’s patients are doing a great job working with Wiley, to allow him to keep gaining ground and keep from getting bored. (It’s a fine line, keeping Wiley from getting bored and keeping Wiley from getting over-stimulated and overloaded!) And Wiley? He’s asked how soon he can go back to school, and is pretty sure he should be allowed to get up and skateboard over to a friend’s house.