Hello everyone this is Susan. Luke is finally home after almost 9 weeks in the hospital. It's so good to have him home and feel like our family life is now returning somewhat back to normal. He goes back to Mercy Hospital on Tuesdays and Thursday for outpatient therapy. When at home, he is very busy doing all kinds of physical, occupational, and speech therapies. He told me today that he wanted to go the whole day without using the wheelchair, but just use the walker. He did it! Since he doesn't have balance yet, we need to assist him with the walker, acting as spotters. At home he is also riding a recumbant exercise bike, doing a variety of core strengthening exercises on the floor and on an exercise ball, hand exercises, facial exercises, speech exercises, vision exercises, and pool therapy. The pool is a great place to relearn to walk because he can't fall and get hurt. He still has the numbness on the left side, although he thinks he is starting to be able to feel deep pressure and some tingling at times. His left hand is still difficult to use, he still has the double vision, ringing in his ears, not much hearing in one ear, and the right side of his mouth and face are numb and not yet working. Also his lack of balance is a big issue. These are definitely some big challenges still to be overcome, but he is truly making good progress! When we remember what his initial deficits were and how much he has overcome since April 14th, we are so thankful -- he has come incredibly far since then. Just a month ago he could barely sit up in bed for a minute or two. We are so proud of his efforts to recover from this!
His history teacher Nolan Dunkly has volunteered to come to the house twice a week this summer to help Luke finish chemistry class -- a tall order for a history teacher! Another example of someone who cares about Luke and is going out of his way to help. We are so thankful to have such good friends.
Thank you also to Steve's Pizza for their terrific fund raising event, and to the Sacramento Men's Senior Baseball League for theirs too. So many great people worked to put these events on to benefit Luke and help in his recovery needs. Thank you all so very much.
Thank you everyone for the dinners that continue to come to our home 3 evenings a week, you don't know how much this helps me! Thank you to those who have helped me so much with Abbie, Clay and Nic. Thanks to so many friends who continue to come visit Luke. A very special thank you also to some friends who have been incredibly generous to Luke and our family -- Joe and Lynn Havorka, Tim and Bonnie Cavanaugh, Mike and Kathy Nelson, Brad Harlow and SPC Distributors. You went way above and beyond. We are grateful to have friends like you.
Lastly, thank you all for your continued prayers during this time. God is answering! Luke is making great progress! Please keep them up!
God bless,
Susan and Tom
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
May 28, 2007 Update
Hello everyone, Luke continues to progress since the last update. They gave him a "field trip" home this weekend. He got to come home on Saturday evening, spent the day at home Sunday, and had to be back to the hospital Monday at 8:00am. He was really getting "hospital fever" and it was getting to him mentally and emotionally, so they granted him this trip home to give him a break and help boost his psyche a little. It worked, boy was he glad to be home! First time in 6 weeks since the hemorrhage. It was a truly wonderful day for all of us to be home together after so long in the hospital. It gave Luke and us a feeling of what it will be like when he gets to come home for good 2-3 weeks from now and life can get somewhat back to normal. At that point, he will begin outpatient physical therapy where we will drive him to an outpatient clinic 3-4 days per week. He will also be working on therapy at home as well during that time. It will basically be working hard 7 days a week for as long as it takes to get his functions back. No one can predict how long that will take, we do know from other AVM and stroke patients we've spoken to though that recovery from this type of event is "a marathon, not a sprint". Just depends how long it takes for the motor skills, nerves, etc. to wake up and be retrained.
He has been able to take 8-10 steps at a time with a walker. Very strenuous and difficult steps, but steps just the same. He has no balance, so the therapist has to steady him while he's up. This is just one of the deficits from the hemorrhage, and is probably compounded by his double vision which he still has. He wears clear glasses and they tape off the lens on one side so he is basically seeing with only the untaped side, which helps stop the double vision. The down side to this though is it's very tough to see, stand, and do things with just one eye. Try it and you'll see, no depth perception......The left eye has improved recently and we are hoping the right will too. The right is still turned inward and causing the problems, and won't shut. If this can just get better it will be a great help to him.
We are so proud of Luke. He is so courageous. This is such a hard thing for a young person to go through, and he is giving it everything he has and not complaining a bit. He has a great attitude under the most difficult of circumstances. He truly is our hero.
Thank you to all the therapists at Mercy Rehab, they have been tremendous. Thank you once again to everyone who has been bringing meals to our home. Thank you to CECI for the nice basket of supplies for Luke. Thank you to Marisa for all the days spent at the hospital keeping Luke and Susan company. Thank you to Tom and Julia for all you continue to do -- daily. Thank you Brooke for the time you have spent with Abbie. Thank you Steve and Joanne, Tim and Bonnie, Mike and Brian, Joe and Lynn, John/Tracy/Cory, and many others for the nice gifts for Luke and for your many visits to see him. He really likes the visits from friends and team mates, keep coming everyone! And most of all -- keep the prayers going everyone! That's the best thing we can all do right now. THANKS.
Lastly, there are a couple of fund raising events coming up with proceeds going to Luke for his recovery needs. We feel kinda strange about this, but we realize that people just want to help, and for that we are very thankful and we appreciate it very much. Steve's Pizza in Laguna is donating 3 nights worth of proceeds to Luke's recovery, May 29, 30 and 31. Thank you so much to Steve's Pizza for their generosity! Please patronize this generous business during this event and in the future when you think about pizza. The other event is being put on by the Sacramento Men's Senior Baseball League/Men's Adult Baseball League. It's Saturday June 23rd at Dan McAuliffe Field next to CSUS. They will have an All Star baseball game, BBQ, music, raffle, etc. Hosted bar at 6:00pm, dinner at 7:00pm. Tickets are $35, please contact Ken Chavez at kchavez22@aol.com for tickets. Thank you so much to Ken, Steve Renowden, Dennis Viegas, and all my good friends in the Sacramento MSBL/MABL for organizing this special event to benefit Luke.
Tom and Susan
He has been able to take 8-10 steps at a time with a walker. Very strenuous and difficult steps, but steps just the same. He has no balance, so the therapist has to steady him while he's up. This is just one of the deficits from the hemorrhage, and is probably compounded by his double vision which he still has. He wears clear glasses and they tape off the lens on one side so he is basically seeing with only the untaped side, which helps stop the double vision. The down side to this though is it's very tough to see, stand, and do things with just one eye. Try it and you'll see, no depth perception......The left eye has improved recently and we are hoping the right will too. The right is still turned inward and causing the problems, and won't shut. If this can just get better it will be a great help to him.
We are so proud of Luke. He is so courageous. This is such a hard thing for a young person to go through, and he is giving it everything he has and not complaining a bit. He has a great attitude under the most difficult of circumstances. He truly is our hero.
Thank you to all the therapists at Mercy Rehab, they have been tremendous. Thank you once again to everyone who has been bringing meals to our home. Thank you to CECI for the nice basket of supplies for Luke. Thank you to Marisa for all the days spent at the hospital keeping Luke and Susan company. Thank you to Tom and Julia for all you continue to do -- daily. Thank you Brooke for the time you have spent with Abbie. Thank you Steve and Joanne, Tim and Bonnie, Mike and Brian, Joe and Lynn, John/Tracy/Cory, and many others for the nice gifts for Luke and for your many visits to see him. He really likes the visits from friends and team mates, keep coming everyone! And most of all -- keep the prayers going everyone! That's the best thing we can all do right now. THANKS.
Lastly, there are a couple of fund raising events coming up with proceeds going to Luke for his recovery needs. We feel kinda strange about this, but we realize that people just want to help, and for that we are very thankful and we appreciate it very much. Steve's Pizza in Laguna is donating 3 nights worth of proceeds to Luke's recovery, May 29, 30 and 31. Thank you so much to Steve's Pizza for their generosity! Please patronize this generous business during this event and in the future when you think about pizza. The other event is being put on by the Sacramento Men's Senior Baseball League/Men's Adult Baseball League. It's Saturday June 23rd at Dan McAuliffe Field next to CSUS. They will have an All Star baseball game, BBQ, music, raffle, etc. Hosted bar at 6:00pm, dinner at 7:00pm. Tickets are $35, please contact Ken Chavez at kchavez22@aol.com for tickets. Thank you so much to Ken, Steve Renowden, Dennis Viegas, and all my good friends in the Sacramento MSBL/MABL for organizing this special event to benefit Luke.
Tom and Susan
Saturday, May 12, 2007
May 12, 2007 Update
Hello everyone. Luke is progressing, 1 inch at a time, but in the right direction. We are very thankful for the following improvements:
1. He is off the feeding tube and able to carefully eat pureed food. This is great. He really enjoys this.
2. All his IV's are out, no more tubes or wires. Yea!
3. His headaches are subsiding. He still has them but he's not requiring as much pain medication as he had been.
4. He is beginning to have some movement and a little sensation on his left side. With great concentration and physical effort, he can raise his left arm and leg a little.
5. He's still on blood pressure medication, which is doing a good job of controlling his pressure.
6. His temperature is now holding close to normal, this is great news.
7. He's had two showers this week! How good they felt! They wheel him to the shower in a special chair and put him under the shower and scrub him up. He feels a lot better after this as you can imagine.
8. Speech and swallowing therapy are going well. His word are getting clearer. It will take a while to get fully back, but he is progressing.
9. Physical and occupational therapy are very tough for him, but he's giving it all he has. It completely exhausts him. They lift him out of bed and put him in a wheelchair. He sits there for 30 minutes, just balancing and learning to hold his head up and straight. They also wheel him to the therapy room where they do certain arm and leg exercises, neck exercises, hand control exercises. They lift him into a standing position and have him stand there for 5 minutes, holding onto a stand attached to the floor, just trying to balance and hold his head up. This is grueling work for him and hard to watch, but we are so proud of his effort and we and he know that this is just what he has to go through to regain things and come back. He struggles with balance because his equalibrium is off and because he sees double. It will prabbaly take quite a while for his eyes to correct and come back. If they don't on their own then surgery may be needed.
There are many friends to thank for all the help they are continuing to give us. Tom and Julia are a second pair of parents to our family. Marisa has spent time at the hospital keeping Luke and Susan company, which helps A LOT. Marisa stayed with Luke while Laurie LaDow took Susan away for a couple hours and got her a massage. How good that felt! Others to thank are Joanne Lee, Shelly Bell and others I know I'm missing for help with our other kids. We were told at the beginning of this that the long term support of friends and neighbors would be crucial. That is so true and we thank you all for it. Special thanks also to grand parents Rusty and Wanda who have trecked up here from San Luis Obispo several times and spent a couple weeks overall with us taking care of things at the house. Their help has been invaluable. Thanks also to everyone who is bringing meals to the house. Thanks to Dr. Mark Douglass who came to the hospital and worked on Luke's retainers for his teeth. Thanks to everyone who comes to visit Luke, please keep coming, it's very good for him to know you all care.
That is the latest. Please continue to pray for a good recovery for Luke, and for him and us to have patience, strength and perserverance because this is going to take months to maybe a year or two to come back from. Your support and prayers are invaluable to us. Thanks everyone.
Tom and Susan
1. He is off the feeding tube and able to carefully eat pureed food. This is great. He really enjoys this.
2. All his IV's are out, no more tubes or wires. Yea!
3. His headaches are subsiding. He still has them but he's not requiring as much pain medication as he had been.
4. He is beginning to have some movement and a little sensation on his left side. With great concentration and physical effort, he can raise his left arm and leg a little.
5. He's still on blood pressure medication, which is doing a good job of controlling his pressure.
6. His temperature is now holding close to normal, this is great news.
7. He's had two showers this week! How good they felt! They wheel him to the shower in a special chair and put him under the shower and scrub him up. He feels a lot better after this as you can imagine.
8. Speech and swallowing therapy are going well. His word are getting clearer. It will take a while to get fully back, but he is progressing.
9. Physical and occupational therapy are very tough for him, but he's giving it all he has. It completely exhausts him. They lift him out of bed and put him in a wheelchair. He sits there for 30 minutes, just balancing and learning to hold his head up and straight. They also wheel him to the therapy room where they do certain arm and leg exercises, neck exercises, hand control exercises. They lift him into a standing position and have him stand there for 5 minutes, holding onto a stand attached to the floor, just trying to balance and hold his head up. This is grueling work for him and hard to watch, but we are so proud of his effort and we and he know that this is just what he has to go through to regain things and come back. He struggles with balance because his equalibrium is off and because he sees double. It will prabbaly take quite a while for his eyes to correct and come back. If they don't on their own then surgery may be needed.
There are many friends to thank for all the help they are continuing to give us. Tom and Julia are a second pair of parents to our family. Marisa has spent time at the hospital keeping Luke and Susan company, which helps A LOT. Marisa stayed with Luke while Laurie LaDow took Susan away for a couple hours and got her a massage. How good that felt! Others to thank are Joanne Lee, Shelly Bell and others I know I'm missing for help with our other kids. We were told at the beginning of this that the long term support of friends and neighbors would be crucial. That is so true and we thank you all for it. Special thanks also to grand parents Rusty and Wanda who have trecked up here from San Luis Obispo several times and spent a couple weeks overall with us taking care of things at the house. Their help has been invaluable. Thanks also to everyone who is bringing meals to the house. Thanks to Dr. Mark Douglass who came to the hospital and worked on Luke's retainers for his teeth. Thanks to everyone who comes to visit Luke, please keep coming, it's very good for him to know you all care.
That is the latest. Please continue to pray for a good recovery for Luke, and for him and us to have patience, strength and perserverance because this is going to take months to maybe a year or two to come back from. Your support and prayers are invaluable to us. Thanks everyone.
Tom and Susan
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Welcome
Hello friends, welcome to this Blog site for our son Luke Duval. Please feel free to post your comments and messages here. We will post updates periodically to keep you informed of Luke's progress.
As you know, Luke suffered a brain hemorrhage from a burst AVM on April 14, 2007. The AVM is on his brain stem. The hemorrhage has stopped, but the damage done is very similar to a stroke. It has left Luke with the biggest challenge of his young life. A challenge he is now taking on with all his might and faith. The AVM itself is still there and will have to be dealt with in the coming months, but right now the doctors are concentrating on recovery to get him strong and functioning again.
Thank you all again for your tremendous support for Luke and our family, and especially for your prayers. Your support keeps us all going, and most importantly keeps Luke going knowing that so many people care about him and are pulling for him to make a great recovery. He is at Mercy General's Acute Rehab Facility at 39th and J. Right now he has about 2-3 hours per day of speech/swallowing therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. He is making good progress speaking. Half of his mouth, tongue and facial muscles are numb and not working right now, but they are teaching him to compensate for that and to exercise those muscles and nerves and push their limits. Doing this allows him to get words out pretty well, and they are getting a little bit clearer each day. They have also started him chewing and swallowing ice chips. Swallowing is one of the most sophisticated things the body does. It requires a lot of coordination and timing. They are trying to get this back as soon as possible so that he can get off the feeding tube through his nose and begin eating/drinking on his own. They are very careful about this because if food or drink goes down his windpipe into his lungs instead of down his esophagus, that is obviously bad. He does have a pretty good swallow which is improving slowly. In a few days they will do a berium swallowing test to give a picture of how it's working. If that shows a safe swallow, then they will slowly increase his food and liquid swallowing over time as he can handle it. In typical teenager fashion, has asked for pizza. That was great for us to hear! Hang in there Luke you will get there.
During physical and occupational therapy they get him out of bed and into a wheelchair. Right now he is concentrating on beng able to sit in the chair, maintain balance, hold his head up and straight, and increase his stamina of doing all these. It is grueling for him and completely exhausts him. But each day he seems to get a hair better at it. They also wheel him down to the gym and do some arm and leg exercises, hand exercises, coordination things with objects to lift and move, etc. His left arm and leg continue to be numb and very weak, but he can lift them a little and squeeze his left hand and wiggle his left toes. The right side is much better with movement and feeling, but is also still very weak. His hearing is affected, left ear doesn't hear so well right now. His eyesight is also affected, he sees double and fuzzy. They think this is due to the pressure in his brain and on the nerves which control eye movement. This can take a while to get better, hopefully it won't be too long for him. He can see the TV up on the wall though and we've watched a couple of innings of ball games together. Last night we also watched his buddy Fernando Vina on ESPN's Baseball Tonight. A big THANK YOU to Fernando and Coach J.D. from PGHS for arranging for Mike Bibby of the Kings to visit Luke last week! We didn't tell him Mike was coming so he was pretty shocked when he walked into his room! Mike is a good man. Brought Luke a signed basketball and a signed high school jersey from his high school -- Shadow Mountain HS in Phoenix. Very cool. Luke dug it. Mike and Fernando had great words of encouragement to Luke, telling him to stay strong and battle. We have no doubt he will. He has always been a hard worker in school and in sports, he is very determined and that will help him a lot. He wants to get back to school and keep that 4.0 going.
Thanks to all of you who have come to visit Luke when he was at UCDMC and since he's been at Mercy now. He enjoys the visits, he likes seeing his friends, teammates, coaches, and the parents who have come. You are all welcome to come visit, but please call Susan or I before you do to see if he's doing well enough for you to come. One of us is always there. The last two days for instance he has had a fever which jumped to 103.5F along with chest pains, which was a scare. All his tests have checked out good though (blood, EKG, chest xray, CT scan, etc.) so they don't know what is causing this. They are controlling it okay though with a chilled blanket to reduce core body temp and with medicine. The medicine for this is a little sedating so it's going to reduce is ability to do the rehab work until they get him off it. Hopefully he won't have to be on these meds for too long. He is also in pain meds for his constant headache pain, and those make him a little sedated. The doctors require anyone who enters the room to wash their hands with the sterile handwashing liquid to the left of the doorway when you enter. Just rub it up and it evaporates on your hands.
Thanks also to our neighbors and friends Tom and Julia Franzoia who have done so much to help at the house with our other kids you just wouldn't believe. Julia also organized a schedule of dinners to be delivered to the house every Mon/Wed/Fri and has something like 70 dinners scheduled by all you good people. Thank you everyone who is paricipating in this, it helps A LOT. Thank you also to friends Kevin and Pam, Debbie, George and Lisa, Craig and Laurie, Tom and Lisa, Tim and Michelle, John Procida, and so many others for the nice cards, gifts and helpful things you have sent and done for us. Sorry I know I'm missing many others here. The long term support of good friends is invaluable and we appreciate having it from you all. Sorry we aren't crossing paths much to be able to tell you thanks in person, just know that we have seen and used everything you've sent and we appreciate it so much.
That is the update for now. Will update again in a week or so and will try to post some pics of Luke and of the Bibby/Fernando visit. Thanks and God bless.
Tom and Susan
As you know, Luke suffered a brain hemorrhage from a burst AVM on April 14, 2007. The AVM is on his brain stem. The hemorrhage has stopped, but the damage done is very similar to a stroke. It has left Luke with the biggest challenge of his young life. A challenge he is now taking on with all his might and faith. The AVM itself is still there and will have to be dealt with in the coming months, but right now the doctors are concentrating on recovery to get him strong and functioning again.
Thank you all again for your tremendous support for Luke and our family, and especially for your prayers. Your support keeps us all going, and most importantly keeps Luke going knowing that so many people care about him and are pulling for him to make a great recovery. He is at Mercy General's Acute Rehab Facility at 39th and J. Right now he has about 2-3 hours per day of speech/swallowing therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy. He is making good progress speaking. Half of his mouth, tongue and facial muscles are numb and not working right now, but they are teaching him to compensate for that and to exercise those muscles and nerves and push their limits. Doing this allows him to get words out pretty well, and they are getting a little bit clearer each day. They have also started him chewing and swallowing ice chips. Swallowing is one of the most sophisticated things the body does. It requires a lot of coordination and timing. They are trying to get this back as soon as possible so that he can get off the feeding tube through his nose and begin eating/drinking on his own. They are very careful about this because if food or drink goes down his windpipe into his lungs instead of down his esophagus, that is obviously bad. He does have a pretty good swallow which is improving slowly. In a few days they will do a berium swallowing test to give a picture of how it's working. If that shows a safe swallow, then they will slowly increase his food and liquid swallowing over time as he can handle it. In typical teenager fashion, has asked for pizza. That was great for us to hear! Hang in there Luke you will get there.
During physical and occupational therapy they get him out of bed and into a wheelchair. Right now he is concentrating on beng able to sit in the chair, maintain balance, hold his head up and straight, and increase his stamina of doing all these. It is grueling for him and completely exhausts him. But each day he seems to get a hair better at it. They also wheel him down to the gym and do some arm and leg exercises, hand exercises, coordination things with objects to lift and move, etc. His left arm and leg continue to be numb and very weak, but he can lift them a little and squeeze his left hand and wiggle his left toes. The right side is much better with movement and feeling, but is also still very weak. His hearing is affected, left ear doesn't hear so well right now. His eyesight is also affected, he sees double and fuzzy. They think this is due to the pressure in his brain and on the nerves which control eye movement. This can take a while to get better, hopefully it won't be too long for him. He can see the TV up on the wall though and we've watched a couple of innings of ball games together. Last night we also watched his buddy Fernando Vina on ESPN's Baseball Tonight. A big THANK YOU to Fernando and Coach J.D. from PGHS for arranging for Mike Bibby of the Kings to visit Luke last week! We didn't tell him Mike was coming so he was pretty shocked when he walked into his room! Mike is a good man. Brought Luke a signed basketball and a signed high school jersey from his high school -- Shadow Mountain HS in Phoenix. Very cool. Luke dug it. Mike and Fernando had great words of encouragement to Luke, telling him to stay strong and battle. We have no doubt he will. He has always been a hard worker in school and in sports, he is very determined and that will help him a lot. He wants to get back to school and keep that 4.0 going.
Thanks to all of you who have come to visit Luke when he was at UCDMC and since he's been at Mercy now. He enjoys the visits, he likes seeing his friends, teammates, coaches, and the parents who have come. You are all welcome to come visit, but please call Susan or I before you do to see if he's doing well enough for you to come. One of us is always there. The last two days for instance he has had a fever which jumped to 103.5F along with chest pains, which was a scare. All his tests have checked out good though (blood, EKG, chest xray, CT scan, etc.) so they don't know what is causing this. They are controlling it okay though with a chilled blanket to reduce core body temp and with medicine. The medicine for this is a little sedating so it's going to reduce is ability to do the rehab work until they get him off it. Hopefully he won't have to be on these meds for too long. He is also in pain meds for his constant headache pain, and those make him a little sedated. The doctors require anyone who enters the room to wash their hands with the sterile handwashing liquid to the left of the doorway when you enter. Just rub it up and it evaporates on your hands.
Thanks also to our neighbors and friends Tom and Julia Franzoia who have done so much to help at the house with our other kids you just wouldn't believe. Julia also organized a schedule of dinners to be delivered to the house every Mon/Wed/Fri and has something like 70 dinners scheduled by all you good people. Thank you everyone who is paricipating in this, it helps A LOT. Thank you also to friends Kevin and Pam, Debbie, George and Lisa, Craig and Laurie, Tom and Lisa, Tim and Michelle, John Procida, and so many others for the nice cards, gifts and helpful things you have sent and done for us. Sorry I know I'm missing many others here. The long term support of good friends is invaluable and we appreciate having it from you all. Sorry we aren't crossing paths much to be able to tell you thanks in person, just know that we have seen and used everything you've sent and we appreciate it so much.
That is the update for now. Will update again in a week or so and will try to post some pics of Luke and of the Bibby/Fernando visit. Thanks and God bless.
Tom and Susan
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