Thursday, January 6, 2011

January 5, 2011




Yesterday Jim was a guinea pig for a group of students learning about breathing problems in quadriplegics. He had a wonderful time being the center of attention for these 4 young women. They spent 2 hours with him trying to get him to use his upper chest and side muscles along with his diaphragm for breathing. They could see that he had activation in these muscles but he was using his tummy muscle for breathing. The upper muscles on the chest are controlled by C-7 or lower. His injury was at C-5 so he was using his tummy & diaphragm to breathe.

They took his shirt off to watch his muscles move. They found a rash under his right arm. I showed it to his nurse who will talk to the doctor. It is probably a yeast infection from his armpit being moist with his arm down most of the time. He also has another urinary tract infection. He very susceptible to UTI's because he has to be catharized every 4 hours. The doctor said that his earlier nausea was probably caused by the UTI. That is good for me to know. He is getting good care at TIRR. I will need to really watch him when he goes to the nursing home.

Jim was exhausted after his breathing session and fell asleep right after I fed him dinner.

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