We heard back from the occupational therapist about Mark's driving. After she conferred with the rehab doc they decided he needed to do one class with a driving school instructor and get his opinion as well. So I'll be scheduling his appointment tomorrow. That sounds to me like good news. While he is thrilled to be able to drive, I'm a little nervous. There will be restrictions such as no night driving, or freeway driving, and only in familiar locations. I'll probably go with him for the first little while just for my own peace of mind. This is one step towards him regaining his independence. For his own mental state, I hope it comes through for him.
Mark complained that his left eye is hurting pretty bad. It's also pretty red. Those are signs of gout that the eye doc told us to watch for. Guess I'll also be scheduling him an appointment with the eye doc for tomorrow. It freaked me out when the doc told me to watch for it because it's very common with eye injuries. At his last appointment he didn't see any sign of it coming on, but he said it can move pretty quickly. There are medications that can treat it and a last result would be to remove his eye. But the doctor said that is VERY rare anymore with the breakthroughs in medication technology. Mark is afraid they're going to "cut out my eye". I can't imagine the fear he must live with being completely out of control of everything that is happening to him. It's no wonder he doesn't want to smile or laugh anymore.
We saw a 1 minute glimpse of our old Mark tonight. My brother, his wife, my Mom and Mark and I were in the kitchen talking about bikini waxes and how painful they are. Mark got this big grin on his face, turned around, started to moon us and said, "Want to see mine?" We all had a good laugh. One more piece of evidence that he's still with us.
Blessing of the Day: medical technology
No comments:
Post a Comment