My Recent Visit

After this weekend I am pleasantly surprised, yet again, at Natalie's remarkable progress. Of all that I witnessed, I noticed the largest improvements in feeding and walking. I will elaborate on each:

Nataliie has been off the 7PM to 7AM nightly tube-feeding since Wednesday, January, 24 and has had to rely solely on her own oral consumption for nutrition. Not only is she taking all of her food orally but her medicine as well. Watching Nat eat was amazing because although she was able to feed herself last time I visited she did not have much of an appetite. The same cannot be said for this trip. Natalie has developed a bit of a sweet tooth since the last time I saw her late December. While I was there I think she must've eaten at least five brownies (which she made earlier in the week with her therapist)! I was so happy to see that she was able to recognize when she was hungry and actually eat most of the items on her meal tray.

On top of Nat's improved self feeding she was also walking a lot better (and faster)! This was wonderful to watch because I was not aware that she was no longer using her walker (Becca says she told me but I beg to differ). Natalie is now able to walk with one person supporting her right side. She has a tendency to slouch to the left but I noticed an improvement in her posture by her walk with Al on Sunday. This Sunday was a very relaxed day. Tina brought Nat to a nearby church in the morning and then Tina, Nat, Al, Becca, and I went out for lunch at Panera. The family has no problems transporting Natalie - though the wheelchair can sometimes be a pain (it wouldn't fit in the Mustang's trunk). When we all returned to the facility we pretty much hung out for the rest of the day. Later on Sunday we all took Nat for a walk in the hallway. Al held her right side lightly and she was off. It was very surprising to see how fast she was able to move and like I said earlier her posture had improved greatly from the day before. She must have walked for about ten minutes without stopping for a break. Al asked her at one point if she wanted to sit in her wheelchair for a minute but she was having nothing of it!

All in all this was a wonderful weekend and I'm glad I was able to witness more of her miraculous recovery. As for the family's stay at Sunnyview - I, personally, believe they will be home by the end of February but I will update the blog as soon as a date is mentioned and confirmed.

Thank you all for reading and keeping up to date on Natalie's recovery! More positive news to follow...

A brief update

First, let me apologize for the lack of updates. I will do my best to post at least once a week.

Second, this will be a brief post as I will be visiting Natalie this weekend and can then leave a detailed account of her progress.

Natalie's progress has slowed a bit from the past few weaks due to a stomach virus that prevented her body from receiving any nutrition. She is now over the virus and is able to continue to move forward with her rehab. Therapists have been working hard with Natalie mainly concentrating on her posture and balance. The family is now able to take her away from the hospital more frequently. Recently they took a lunch trip to Panera and today they visited the apartment for some food and games.

I will be visiting the family this weekend for a few days and should be back by Monday to update the blog. I will try to be as detailed as possible because I'm sure this post does not answer all of your questions. Please feel free to leave questions in the comments section and I will do my best to answer them next Monday when I update the blog.

Happy New Year!

First off, I'd like to wish each and every one of you a happy and healthy 2007.

Secondly, I feel it has been a while since I've posted on Natalie's progress and I know today is the perfect day to recollect my personal experiences with her this past week.


Rebecca and I drove up to Schenectady on Christmas morning - the greatest time to drive, I believe we got there in about 2 1/2 hours. We drove directly to the Foulger's apartment where we met the family - Marc, Tina, Kyle, Al, and Natalie. We spent about 7 hours there before Becca and I left and the rest of the pack brought Nat back to Sunnyview.

While at the apartment we played games (the present game, hungry hungry hippos, battle of the sexes, charades, etc.), enjoyed a delicious meal compliments of Marc, and watched The Grinch.

I couldn't help but notice how much more expressive Nat seemed from the last time I visited. She was laughing a whole lot and telling jokes of her own. I was also very pleased to see that she is getting a little bit of her attitude back! When someone would ask her to do something she didn't want to she'd let them know - For example, Becca would say, "How about you eat some carrots?" - and Nat replied with, "How about, no!" This may have happened about 10 times while I was visiting and it cracked everyone up each time she said it.

Along with her increased expressions Nat is also feeding herself wonderfully. She holds water bottles to take drinks from straws or directly from the bottle. She can use spoons and forks and is very understanding, even when she doesn't feel hungry, that she must eat to get stronger faster. During her meals the family tries to get Nat to eat as much as possible because they all (including Natalie) want to have her feeding tube removed. Currently she is only receiving tube feeds at night.

The other improvement that I observed is Natalie's walking progress. This was so amazing to watch because I had never even seen her stand up with her walker before. I was able to stand in on one of her physical exams where therapists tested her ability to walk. First they stood her up (which she does on her own by pushing herself out of her wheelchair) and she grabbed onto her walker. They then asked her to walk for three minutes and measured her distance. The therapists were unable to help her because it was a test and were only allowed to stand behind her and 'spot' her from behind. This did not stop Natalie from walking an unbelievable 97 feet in the three minute period! I was shocked to see how fast she was able to move with the walker and both Becca and Tina were floored by her acheivement. After this test they asked her to walk from one line of tape to another (a distance of 5 meters). Before she started Natalie said she could do it in thirty seconds. The therapist started the timer and Nat was off. This test was repeated and Natalies times, respectively were 26 and 20 seconds! She managed to shock us all again! The final test was a little buggy and we had to have Nat re-do it three times because the computer measuring her steps was goofing up. Nat was to walk down a mat with sensors hooked to a computer that would calculate her exact steps so therapists could work on any corrections. It turns out repeating the exercise three times drastically helped Nat because she improved greatly in her last try. After this test was complete and we headed back upstairs to her room we kept hearing from different therapists of how surprised and happy the test givers were of her progress.

All in all I can definitely say that Nat is progressing wonderfully at Sunnyview. The therapists are all doing a terrific job with her and she really is coming back to us. Again I'd like to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year and a strong recovery for Natalie and the family!

Sincerely,
Mike

Christmas Message

The following is a special message from the Foulger family...

We would like to wish everybody reading this blog a very Happy Christmas. The Foulger family has not mailed Christmas cards this year because we are all concentrating on Natalie’s recovery. However we would like thank all of you for all your help and support over the last few months, and particularly send our heartfelt thanks to:

All of the first responders who were at the accident scene in Watertown.

The Neuro, Orthopedic and Trauma teams and all the other doctors who helped Natalie at University Hospital in Syracuse.

The nurses and other staff in Neuro ICU, Neuro step-down, and unit 7A at University Hospital.

The doctors, therapists and nurses at Sunnyview Rehab Hospital in Schenectady.

The organizers and participants in the Benefit Run, the Irish Quilt and the Spaghetti Dinner.

National Vision Center and their employees for their incredible fundraiser.

All of our friends, neighbors, relatives and colleagues who helped in so many ways, with visits, cards and words of encouragement, financial donations, looking after our house (and Stormy!), providing meals, hotel accommodations, etc.


Best wishes for the New Year from all of us!



Marc and Tina, Becca and Mike, Kyle, Al, and of course Nat.

Foulger Holiday Plans

Some of you have expressed interest in the family's plans this holiday season. I will do my best to update you all on whats happening with them.

Al plans to drive up to Watertown this Christmas to be with his family. He will be driving late on Christmas day.

Rebecca came to visit me - she will be here for Christmas Eve and we will drive back to Schenectady early Christmas morning.

Kyle, Marc, and Tina all remained in Schenectady and will be there on Christmas as well.

Natalie has a 'get out of jail free' pass for the whole day on Christmas so we will be taking her to the apartment to celebrate the Day.

I hope that this brief post is informative enought to answer your questions. Let me know if there are any other questions I may be able to answer.

Happy Holidays!

-Mike

Spaghetti Dinner Summary

"The dinners went well on both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Combined we sold a total of 323 dinners. There were a multitude of concerned questions about Natalie and endless good wishes extended to the entire Foulger Family. Cindy Harnas, Mary, Terese and Barb from the H.S cafeteria all donated their time to cook, clean and supervise the kitchen activities. What a lovely and generous group of ladies they are!"

Thanks to Elizabeth Fralick for an explanation of that wonderful night!

A report of grand success!

Natalie has been doing very well lately. She has been exceeding in three key areas - walking, eating, and overall improvement.

Currently Natalie is able to stand up with the help of a special walker. This walker is taller than traditional walkers assisting Nat in keeping her body upright. Therapists stand behind her to observe she is standing straight and push the walker forward, and she is now able to move her feet on her own!

Typically, after every meal, Natalie would have a set amount in her tube-feed because she was unable to provide her body with enough nutrition during meals. She no longer needs a tube-feed after every meal because of her improvements in feeding herself! She does still receive a continuous tube-feeding from 7pm to 7am, however, so she is not yet completely eating on her own.

Starting this past weekend Natalie has been granted passes allowing her to leave the hospital for a few hours at a time. This week the family piled in Al's car and took her for a ride around Schenectady!

More exciting updates to come!

Spaghetti Dinner

There will be 2 Spaghetti Dinners in the SJCS High School Cafeteria to benefit Natalie in her continuing recovery. They are scheduled for this Wednesday, Dec. 13 and Thursday, Dec. 14. Take-outs will begin at 4 PM on both days and eat-in begins at 4:30 PM. Wednesday's dinner will end at 6 and will be followed a t 6:30 PM by the Middle School Christmas Concerts. Thursday's dinner will end at 6:30 PM to be followed by the High School Christmas Concerts and Dance Company. Dinner tickets cost $6.00 per person, 5 and under are free and the Family rate is $20.00. The menu will include spaghettti and meatballs, tossed salad, homemade bread, dessert and coffee, tea or milk. A few more volunteers to help serve and clean-up on each day would be lovely! If anyone would like to help, please contact Elizabeth Fralick at (315) 782-4138.

A Useful Link

Natalie's father just sent me an email with a wonderfully descriptive page about Natalie's current stage, Post Traumatic Amnesia. I urge everyone who continuously reads this blog to visit the link as it paints a brilliant picture of Natalie's abilities and disabilities to this point. The link can be found here.

A Quick Week's Update

This week Natalie continued having stomach problems. As a possible solution doctors have changed her food. She is still receiving most of her nourishment through tube feeding, however, she does continue to feed herself orally. Natalie has been making small steps of progress and will continue to improve as time passes.

A Quick Post

This update is to bring you all up to speed on Natalie's newest 'condition'. Surgeons examined her x-rays three times and concluded that a hematoma had developed beneath her pelvic incision. The doctors decided not to go along with any surgical procedures because the condition will not interfere with her health.

On another note, Natalie's Aunt Ann recently ended her visit to the states. I know I speak for the rest of the family when I say thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. Your presence was greatly appreciated in this time of need.

This weeks update

In case you haven't already heard Natalie has tested out of the coma stim program meaning that she is no longer considered to be in a coma! She does not act any differently because of this and her progress is still slow but gradual. It mainly means that she scored a 20 (out of 23) or higher on her coma emergence test two weeks in a row - she actually scored a perfect 23 both weeks!

Natalie has been good and talkative for most of the week except today. She was very nauseous and quiet today and as a result missed most of her therapies for the day. Doctors suspect her c-diff is coming back and causing the vomitting. As of now they are unsure but I will post an update once her condition is resolved.

A further request

A further request:
As requested before: Please do not just show up at sunnyview. Natalie needs to concentrate on her therapies and rest. It makes it difficult on the family to have to turn people away, but this will have to be done on Natalie's behalf.
Thanks for the continued support.
Gratefully yours
Tina
(concerned Mum)



Please respect the wishes of the family as they are trying to do what is best for a speedy recovery.

Thank you.

Great week!

Natalie has made some excellent progress in the past week. These improvements include eating better portions of food - she will now request food (Wendy's frosty, cinnamon buns, etc.) that she can eat with assistance. She has also been talking a lot more. Recently Natalie has been able to compose more complex sentences, for instance she is now able to say a name (or direct her voice) and then ask a question or tell a joke. Natalie seems more comfortable this week than any previous week. She is able to tell us when she is hurting and what is bothering her and sometimes can remedy the problem herself. She will even ask us to be quiet or stop talking when she needs some time to herself!

Natalie has spent most of her days this week in her wheelchair instead of in bed. When she is in her wheelchair the family includes her in games or tells stories with her. Her speech is becoming increasingly coherent as she speaks louder and is more consistent with her thoughts.

She has been doing very well with her therapies and is making excellent progress from the last time I saw her, two weeks ago.

Natalie still needs to focus her energy on her therapies as she is always exhausted at night. Because of this the family still asks that visitors are strictly limited to close family friends and relatives. Please do not show up without calling the family first. I will let you all know once Natalie is able to have more visitors! Otherwise keep the prayers coming and thank you all for reading the blog!

On a sidenote - The format of the blog will be a bit different. Because Natalie's stay at Sunnyview is somewhat of a 'rollercoaster' I will be doing weekly updates on her status. If something extremely important happens, I will surely break the format. Otherwise, join us next week for more miracles!

Brief update

Therapists began trying to feed Natalie three times a day. This includes very small portions of food (cheerios, orange juice, yogurt, etc.) but will help to get Natalie back into the habit of eating three meals daily. She is not yet able to eat enough on her own to completely nourish herself so they are continuing the tube feeding to remedy that.

Natalie's nausea continued today but she was more alert today than she had been in the past few days (talking more and participating more in her therapies). She continued working on improvements in therapies - including beginning to learn how to use a regular wheelchair (natalies current wheelchair is able to angle her back so she sits back more comfortably and also has a headrest).

I was also told that Marc was able to show Natalie the website for the first time and he read a few comments to her. I look forward to the near future when she will be able and alert enough to read the comments herself - I believe that day is not so far away!

Keep praying!

Update and Goals

Thanks to Marc for today's wonderful post!


Natalie had another minor setback this week when her feeding tube got blocked on Thursday evening. The tube had clogged up before, but this time the nurses could not get it unblocked. Nat missed all her meds that day and the tube feeding as well. On Friday she was taken over to Ellis hospital, a general hospital right next door to Sunnyview. There they x-rayed the tube with dye in it and found that it had pulled out of her jejunum, and had kinked. They straightened out the kink but could not re-insert it into the jejunum because her intestines were in spasms. However the x-rays showed that the blockage between her stomach and her jejunum seemed to have resolved in the last few weeks. It was decided to convert the tube back to a G-tube, in her stomach instead of in the jejunum, and see if she could tolerate that over the weekend. So far so good!

When Natalie is feeling unwell or tired she stops talking, or talks much less. Between her C-diff infection last week and the tube problems and procedure this week she has been very tired, and has not talked as much as before, but when she does talk her voice is now louder and clearer.



The therapists recently gave Natalie a new set of goals for the next 3-4 weeks. The most important of the goals are:

1) Orientation to “people, place and time”: People emerging from a coma have very little short term memory, and can typically remember some information from several years ago much better than they can remember information from a few hours ago. For this reason they have trouble recognizing people, understanding what time, date or year it is, or remembering where they are. Natalie is fairly well oriented to people, she knows each of us and generally remembers her therapists. She is somewhat oriented to place, she usually remembers that she is in hospital, and can pick the right hospital name if given a couple of options. She has more trouble with time, even though we go through the calendar several times a day.

2) Following commands consistently: Natalie can follow simple commands, but is not yet 100% consistent in doing so.

3) Discontinue the feeding tube: Natalie is beginning to eat a few small spoonfuls of soft foods by mouth in the morning, and drinking a little with a straw. Gradually she will be encouraged to eat and drink more with the goal of establishing 3 meals a day and phasing out the feeding tube.

4) Switch to a regular wheelchair and learn to wheel it around herself: One of the goals of her physical therapy is to strengthen and tone her back and stomach muscles so that she can sit without full support. She can then switch from her special wheelchair, which has wrap around support and a neck brace, to a regular wheelchair.

5) Family training for bed to wheelchair transfers: We have a goal too! We are learning how to safely transfer her to a wheelchair, and will learn how to transfer her from a wheelchair to a car, so that we will be ready when the time comes for her to make short trips out of the hospital. Natalie will also be taught to help with the transfers by taking some weight on one leg.



There has been some confusion over the posting about Nat walking. To be clear, she was held upright for a few minutes, without taking any of her own weight on her feet, and was encouraged and helped to move her legs in a walking motion. It took 4 people to do this and by no means was she actually walking. She was practicing movements only. We do hope that she will walk again eventually, but that will not happen until she can straighten her right leg and regain more strength and feeling in her left side.

Happy Halloween

Natalie attempted walking today! She had two therapists and the family to help her walk but kept at it for about 20 minutes on and off. She is not yet able to put all her weight on her feet just yet but is learning to put one foot in front of the other. Natalie enjoyed the weather today as the family wheeled her outside. She has also been speaking and answering questions as she was before her minor setback.

Natalie continues to progress and with your thoughtful prayers will only get stronger. Keep it up!!

Moving uphill

I have been told that Natalie is continuing her uphill progress and is again able to speak very softly. She is not yet talking as much as she was able to before she became sick but should be back to that point shortly. During the time Natalie was unable to speak she used a bit of sign language! I was amazed to hear that she was able to recall that process!

Natalie's therapy sessions are going well. With the exception of the past few days she is now back on track with her sessions and will continue to improve as the days move on.

I will do my best to keep you informed on her progress and know that you are all extremely anxious to hear how she is improving. Please continue to leave comments and encouraging words on the blog as they will help Natalie through the tough times ahead. Thanks, all!

A Minor Setback

Here is another post from Natalie's father:

Natalie has had a minor setback this week, one of those things that can happen when you are in hospital for a while. She has Clostridium Difficile Colitis (known as C-diff), which is basically an infection of the intestines. This is something that can develop when you are taking antibiotics (which Nat was taking for a UTI), or you can get by contact, particularly in a hospital. It causes diarrhea, cramping and flu like symptoms, the cure is a different antibiotic.

At the beginning of the week Nat did make more progress. She wrote “Nat” on a piece of paper and drew a star when asked to. She was also making progress eating little spoonfuls of various foods and drinking orange juice through a straw, which she loved. Unfortunately after a couple of days she vomited the orange juice and as she got sicker she got very tired. Her feeding tube was then disconnected for a couple of days and she has had to miss a few of her therapies. Since she is very tired and feeling unwell she has stopped talking or communicating much, but she does still give an occasional thumbs up or down to questions. Her white blood cell count had been up, but is now back to normal, so her tube feeding was re-started this morning. Hopefully she will recover more over the weekend and will be ready to make more progress next week.

I will update you all as soon as Natalie starts feeling better and improving!

Sign the Irish Chain Quilt from overseas!

I recently received an email from the quilt master's daughter, Colleen Cappon, stating that anyone overseas that wishes to sign the quilt may do so by including a small blurb (it must fit on a 3 x 3 square) and $5 to:

Liz Cappon
14579 County Route 156
Watertown NY 13601

Please get your submissions in or postmarked by November 3rd.

Thank you!