Day 100 (Nov 30)


I stayed home at my sister's house today, self-isolating in the bedroom and only going out for lunch and bathroom breaks.  I have no Covid symptoms and tested negative yesterday, but I'm playing it safe.  

Tobias had a special day today.  He gets tired of the monotony in the hospital and wants to stay outside as long as possible when I take him for walks, even if it is just to pace back and forth on the same 50 yards of sidewalk concrete.  Today he was in for a treat.  The physical therapist and the occupational therapist arranged for a van to bring all of them to a local aviary and botanical garden.  This was a welcome change of pace and provided a surge of new sensory stimuli for Tobias.  As a little boy, he was fascinated with birds and we couldn't go for a walk without his pockets getting stuffed with any feathers he found on the way.  He is intrigued by biology in general and enjoyed seeing different plants and fauna.  His eyes were open and he tracked birds as the flew around in the aviary.  I'm sad that I didn't get to see him enjoying his field trip.

I called the nurse and kept tabs on Tobias' condition today.  He was rock solid with his heart rate, mid 70s to mid 80s.  I have no idea what caused the spike of several days over 100.  Perhaps the removal of the beta blocker medicine to regulate his heart caused the spike and it has taken his body time to adjust to normal heart rates without the medicine.

Tobias was quite verbal this morning and told the speech therapist that he doesn't like having the oxygen and pulse monitor on his toe.  The "pulse-ox" monitor is the only machine that he is hooked up to and is provides real-time feedback on his heart rate and the oxygen levels in his blood.  It's where I get almost all of the heart rate information that I feed on.  The sensor is a thin, bendable metal plate covered in a bandage-type material and connected to a cord that runs to the monitor.  The metal plate bends around the toe so that one metal sensor is touching the top and bottom of a toe.  Small plastic wings with adhesive on one side stretch out from the metal band and are used to secure the sensor onto his toe.  It doesn't look uncomfortable, but apparently Tobias isn't a big fan and the sensor was moved to his finger this morning.

That's all I know about today.  The pictures are from the aviary visit and the video comes from yesterday when we celebrated the first TIMF (to itch my face) day.



Hope over fear.

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