Dad had a good week. He had physical and speech therapy everyday. The speech therapist did two different swallow tests that had not been done yet at any of the facilities he's visited. The tests demonstrated that his muscles are very weak and not ready for swallowing, but he has not been given consistent speech therapy to strengthen those specific muscles. The therapist has developed a program aimed at working them, and they will give him the swallow test again in a few weeks.
The doctor's goal for physical therapy is to get him standing up. His blood pressure tends to drop a bit when they get him out of bed, but they are closely monitoring him and hope that this will get better as he gets stronger and gets up more often. He had to have a small procedure today to unblock his feeding tube, but did his therapy for the day beforehand. On a more positive note, his lungs seemed to have cleared up nicely.
He also enjoyed a very nice visit from his friend and fellow SBHS Class of 1957 alumna, Barbara Westlake this week.
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