Spoke to the neurosurgeon today, who said he had hoped we would see some movement from left leg by now. I don't think he is allowing for time spent recovering from visual neglect, which I think has been at least partially caused by bleeding in the brain since the last coiling, when the coils obviously penetrated the rear of the aneurysm. Without a doubt we have moved from reawakening the memory of the left hand side to relearning it.
In physiotherapy I did see some movement from left leg when the physiotherapist asked Jo to push against her but it was very slight and Jo was unaware of it. They do seem to expect to see some movement soon, with both the ward doctor and the physiotherapist actively looking for signs.
The physiotherapists put Jo in a powered wheelchair today. After the initial elation of movement under her control, Jo realised how much effort she had to put into compensating for her left side neglect, which she probably hasn't been aware of until now. I think it was also good as it made her aware a powered wheelchair isn't any kind of silver bullet and strengthened her resolve to walk again. This week has been the first week I have seen that desire strongly expressed by Jo. I also wonder how much of a psychological block the tennis ball sized cavity caused by the missing brain flap is.
Jo learnt she is to be discharged to CICC tomorrow.
This blog was started to share my experience of caring for someone with severe hemiplegia in the hope it may help others.
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Different strokes...
It has been nearly seven years since Jo suffered a "controlled" stroke whilst undergoing brain surgery to clip the blood vessel that had caused a subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000. Sadly two successive coilings did not occlude the bleed and so Jo had a craniotomy in August 2008. During surgery the surgeon discovered the coiling had penetrated the rear of the aneurysm, occasioning emergency repair procedures. Consequentially they spent one and a half hours longer in surgery than expected, leading to the right half of Jo's brain forgetting it has to look after the left side of her world.
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