The Bionic Man

Kevin did not have radiation therapy over the 3-day weekend, so the last few days have been pretty quiet. The head residents have switched and there’s a new attending physician, but these sorts of changes seem to be par for the course in a teaching hospital. We have brought the new team up to date, and everything seems to be proceeding well. Kevin is still taking small steps in the right direction; his symptoms are slightly improving with each day.

About a week ago, Kevin had a frustrating physical therapy session, but luckily a sympathetic occupational therapist saw our dissatisfaction and offered to help. She showed us “Nessy,” a contraption that may improve Kevin’s movement. Due to the location of Kevin’s tumors in his brain stem, he has trouble controlling the left side of his body. While Kevin still can’t connect signals from his brain to his left side, Nessy continues to work the nerves on his left arm. Nessy, which looks like a forearm/wrist brace, sends small electric shocks to open, relax and close Kevin’s left hand. It’s pretty surreal to watch his hand move again.

An update on the milkshake rankings: Kevin has deemed the chocolate shake from Rick’s Rather Rich as very good and rich (true to the name). He’s ranked it in 2nd place, tied with In-N-Out, behind 1st place Peninsula Creamery, and ahead of 3rd place Palo Alto creamery. It seems that In-N-Out is getting some points for emotional comfort food, but hey, who knows, maybe it does stand up to the “fancier” shakes!

Thank you to everyone who is checking in and sending love and support from around California, the States and the world.