A Room With A View

A fair bit has changed since our last update on Cory’s Birthday.

We are making progress and hitting a few milestones at the moment, he has had some pain meds being slightly reduced (one of about 8 different concoctions), his catheter being removed, getting more mobility and saying goodbye to Ward 5C, it has been a massive few days.

On Saturday night Cory was moved from ward 5C and moved up to the adolescent ward “7 Teen”, while it is an awesome step in the right direction and nice to be in a place a little quieter (no screaming babies) it is really sad to have to say goodbye to all the awesome nursing staff that have been so lovely to not only Cory, but also to Shona, Jeldi and I. I am absolutely amazed at how much some of these wonderful people actually care, we have even had staff members from other departments (that had attended to Cory upon admittance) swing by, out of their way just to say hi and see how he is going!

Thanks 5C

7 Teen has been really good so far, Cory has only had 2 nurses til now and both have been so lovely. 7 Teen is a lot different to 5C in regards to a little more freedom, with lots of teens roaming the ward and there seems to be some really nice friendships between some of the other patients, I know that in time when Cory has some mobility (a wheel chair) he is going to really enjoy being able to chill out with some of the other kids here and maybe even head out to LiveWire to chill for a bit in a different surrounding.
A big plus to moving to 7 Teen is that he now has (and hopefully keeps) a room to himself and a half decent view outside.

With his catheter now removed he is on to intermittent catheters until hopefully he is able to retrain his bladder to work, this is really uncomfortable for him and something that we as normal functioning humans just take for granted. There is a lot to take on for any 15 year old and Cory is just amazing us every single day, the way that he just simply accepts what needs to happen and gets on with it.
So what does that mean you ask? Well basically since Cory’s spinal cord is damaged, neither his bowels or bladder can function normally, this means for example that every time he needs to pee (every 4 hours because he cannot tell himself) he has to have what is called an intermittent catheter inserted to drain his bladder, then removed again until the next 4 hour pee break…..
You can imagine how uncomfortable and daunting this would be for an adult, but Cory has just taken it in his stride.
We are unsure at this point if this is something that he will have to do for weeks, months or the years to come.

Days, weeks, months…… obviously not being able to move more than a half arsed roll at the moment the days are pretty long for him, so he needs things to do. Fliss (once again) has been able to keep him well and truly entertained even in her absense. Fliss was extremely thoughtful when getting him a birthday present last week buying him a couple of puzzles to keep his mind occupied. He has mastered the Snake Cube and still working on the Rubiks Cube!

With each round of physio Cory is gaining more range with his legs and he is also gaining more mobility so there are a lot of positive signs. He is now moving both legs at the hips and knees. With assistance from someone holding the weight of his legs he is able to move his knees in and out and to move his lower legs to probably about 30 degrees.
He is also regaining more movement in his left big toe, but unfortunately he is still unable to control his right big toe, although there is a flicker of movement every now and then, so we have a lot of faith that he will also regain this movement in time. Although he really has very little movement or strength in anything below his waist, we need to be mindful that we are still only 11 days post-op and there is bound to be swelling still in his spinal cord which will restrict some ranges and motions.
Time is what he needs and a whole lot of support from us and his spinal re-hab team.
It also helps having Fliss on board as a physio… hahaha

Along with more movement, Cory is also getting more sleep, this is thanks to the “Pain Team” getting his meds nicely balanced out and him not having such a roller coaster ride in pain. He is also now able to start having one of his regular meds halved and he is not requiring any on demand pain killers. This allowing Cory to get a good night sleep, which in turn helps Shona and I to do the same thing.
PMH has been unreal and even provide a reclining chair in Cory’s room so that we can be right by his side 24/7.

Our goal had been to have Cory sitting up on the edge of the bed by today, but he has been making so much progress that we probably got a little ahead of ourselves and we had to just take a step backwards, we will hopefully try again in the next few days but it is going to take as long as it takes for him to get comfortable to be sitting up on the edge of a bed, after all, it is a long way from where he has come in the few short days after being cleared to even have his head elevate above the level of his toes!

We are absolutely loving all the support that is coming from the community both internal and external to the BMX family and we are getting to the point where we will be ready to take on a few more visitors, but please remember that Cory has a massive schedule of Physio and other “medical” requirements, plus he tires quite easily, so please let us know when you plan to come so that we can see if you will be able to come in.

We really appreciate the hard work being done by so many individuals and clubs on Cory’s behalf, it is certainly not something that we have expected.
Although we could not make it to the Southside fundraiser and we will not make it to the Bunbury or MaD fundraisers, we are aiming to be trackside for Nationals.

Again guys, thanks so much.

#corycrombiecan
#muchlove

The Crombies