Up and Down

Kevin had a weekend full of slow and steady progress, even despite a bump in the road Sunday morning. On Saturday, his speaking improved significantly. We understand him much better, which is a big relief for both Kevin and us. He had a long session with a wonderful speech therapist who was happy with his improvement. We were starting to wonder when his trache could come out, so she explained the process of removing tracheostomies. Kevin now meets most the criteria for taking out the trache; the only thing he’s a bit weak on is initiating his own cough. One tumor is in an area that especially affects his control of his swallowing, vocal chords, mouth and tongue. Kevin has a wonderfully strong cough that rattles the walls, but it’s reflexive—he can’t cough on command. He also has a hard time purposefully clearing his throat, though that is getting better. Willful coughing and throat-clearing are two important things for protecting his airway and preventing him from aspirating, so the tracheostomy is wonderful help while he can’t do those things. However, it looks like they may plug his trache soon, which would test if he could protect his airway well enough without the trache.

Kevin got a bad headache Saturday night and was not able to sleep much. His headaches scare the hell out of us, to say the least. However, when we arrived Sunday morning, we deduced that he probably had a sinus headache, maybe caused by allergies. He was outside for a while yesterday, and it was very windy. All of our allergies are going nuts, so we wouldn’t be surprised if his allergies were active also! Once we explained to Kevin that it was probably a sinus headache and he shouldn’t worry too much, he calmed down and had a decent day, although he was extremely sleepy. He still managed to sit up in a chair for a couple hours and do some exercises with us. He also wore the speaking valve on his trache for a record amount of time. We hope Kevin sleeps better tonight and gathers some more energy to put into Monday’s physical, occupational and speech therapy.