First Month at Rehab

It has been one month since Charbel went to the Rehab Center in Halifax. We haven’t been updating much, largely due to the fact that progress has been SLOW. There are very few, if any changes from day to day or week to week.

Looking back, the last month has been full of meetings, assessments, tests, and scans. But there has been very little progress.

Charb met with his neurologist and had an MRI done. The MRI showed a couple of good things. One, that the shunt is working, and two that the clot that he once had is now gone. This is great news. Physically, the brain has not changed, meaning that the damaged areas are still damaged. This was expected. From the MRI we have no way of knowing how Charbel’s neurological pathways are being reconnected. All we know is what we see him do, which is pretty amazing.

He also met with a vision specialist. But there was nothing special about his prognosis. He believes that Charbel can see (we knew this all along) but he doesn’t know to what extent (that’s what we were hoping to find out). He believes that Charbel has nerve damage as a result of the accident, which would explain why he cannot move his eyes. He doesn’t think that there is anything that we can do to help correct his vision (i.e. surgery to straighten his eyes would not necessarily be helpful, neither would glasses). Our position has always been that with work anything can improve. So we move forward by working with Charbel on moving his eyes up, down, left and right. So far, he cannot do this, but who’s to say that with time and effort it cannot be done.

On a physical level, Charbel’s ankles have seen some improvement due to some interesting machinery at the Rehab Center. Basically Charbel lies down and is attached to a series of pulleys and ropes that are tightened in order to stretch his ankles. This week his left ankle looks a little more straight, but it still has a LONG way to go before he can put any pressure on it to be able to stand.

The physical therapists and doctors are pessimistic about Charbel’s ability to regain a ‘normal’ position in his feet without surgery. Go figure. While we are not ruling surgery out as an option, for us it is the LAST option, and we will trying everything we can think of before considering tendon release surgery. For now, stretching and physical therapy seems to be making small but consistent gains.

Besides his ankles, Charbel has been working remaining in a sitting position by holding his upper body upright. He has been making some gains in this area. Both at the rehab center and at home we are sitting him up on the edge of a table and letting him use his hands for support to hold himself up. It’s a lot of work, but its very satisfying to see Charbel sitting unassisted for a few minutes at a time.

Finally, we are working on getting Charbel a new wheel chair that will allow him to be in a fully upright position. He will also be able to wheel himself around in the chair. This is the next big step for Charbel. Once he can sit upright and use his arms to move the chair he find a lot more freedom and independence. This will allow him to do more things on his own while working on being able to stand and walk in the future.

Charb certainly hasn't lost his passion for Rugby!

Thanks Ms. Zimmer for sending us this great photo!