Patty enjoys watching videos on her SONY video player.
Category Archives: Teresa
Yes & No Wheelchair
Here’s an example of a low-tech head-rest guides used to reinforce Patty’s eye-gaze communication—LEFT for NO and RIGHT for YES.
Patty—Three Years Later
Today is the third anniversary of Patty’s injury.
And on this day, while in Texas, I happened to meet a tour guide whose daughter, Katy, had contracted traumatic brain injury (also three years ago) while swerving her car to avoid dogs that had wandered onto the freeway.
Katy Munson’s injuries mirror Patty’s: the contracted limbs, (her feet having had the same surgery to sever her Achilles tendons as Patty had), her limited motor coordination, and her nonverbal communication with eye-blinks. In an intense 15 minute conversation we covered topics that included physical therapy, augmentative communication devices, nursing home care, ICU care, community support, and the disbelief of the doctors in a daughter’s cognition and a mother’s knowing. Our words couldn’t spill out fast enough.
What I saw in Katy’s mother Cindy was the unwavering belief that not only could Katy get better, but she would get better. This belief is shared by Katy’s father who is helping his daughter learn to walk again–while Katy is harnessed into the Dynogate walker, her father places her feet atop his as he inches forward, challenging her muscles and brain to mimic his steady moves.
Although this site is dedicated to Patty’s progress, perhaps we should take this moment to acknowledge all the selfless parents who lift their children up, one slow step at a time, and to their sons and daughters who do all they can to keep moving forward with their parent’s loving support.
— TB
Wish the world had been watching on Saturday
Contrasts sometimes occur in Patty’s ability to perform from week to week–wide contrasts. Last week, after Patty began her new school year, she complained of headache, left earache, and rash. (It’s not unusual for her to become ill during the first weeks of school with exposure to new people and surroundings.) Her energy level last Saturday was sluggish, and in lieu of working with switches on Sunday, she watched the film “Napoleon Dynamite”.
Today Patty activated the switches like a seasoned pro. There was a delay of only a few seconds (and sometimes none at all) between the time when she was asked to activate the switch and when she turned the radio on with her foot. Patty has a wonderful nurse, ZeeZee, who stays with her every other Saturday and Sunday. With ZeeZee’s applause and encouragement, Patty smiled as she showed us what she was capable of–intense determination and focus. In addition, Patty moved her right arm on cue after a brief range of motion stretch. She also worked to roll her body from a side position onto her back with relative ease, considering she’d not tried that move since her tenure at the nursing home.
What we’ve learned from Patty over the past years is that when there are times she disappoints in her performance, she will rebound with exuberance the next. It is that effort keeps us inspired and returning to help her again and again…and happily again.
– TB
Look Up For Yes
Having awakened from a seven-month coma brought on by two massive strokes in 1966, Julia Tavalaro found herself, at the age of 33, paralyzed and alone in an unfamiliar hospital. Eventually, she was able to reconstruct the moments preceding her first stroke at her home on Long Island, suffering from a terrible headache and trying to soothe her hungry infant. Tavalaro’s enormous capacity to battle devastating misfortune is on display in her memoir, ”Look Up for Yes,” written with the poet Richard Tayson. But her gifts extend beyond a fierce will for self-recognition, for she is also endowed with extraordinary powers of memory and description that enable her to convey her experiences vividly.
Tavalaro’s is a remarkable life story for anyone interested in alternate communication and the great diversity of human intimacy. The book is available at many bookstores as well as Amazon.com: LOOK UP FOR YES