Wednesday

Dear XXX

Later on Monday, A got herself a bed in a double room. She was able to get training that day, and I had a good conversation with the responsible physiciain. The blog has been quite a powerful tool too. Within ten minutes of me blogging about her being placed in a corridor, a friend of ours who works at the hospital as an administrator, had sent me links to A´s patient rights and another friend of A´s, a journalist, at one of the big newspapers sent me an email. It turns out that all patients have the right to one responsible physician who coordinates the care.

The conversation with the Norwegian doctor, was good. We reviewed all the documents I had brought from New Jersey. An older woman with her specialty in internal medicinde, she commented on the tests. "No need to do any of these tests again. A lot of good work has been done already," she said while glancing over the pages I was giving her. She was the first doctor I had met who did not want to do her own tests. I told her about the head stand A did earlier in the day on the day she had the stroke -- June 23rd. "It sounds like that could trigger something, given that there was something there to be triggered," she said. "When you look at her values, it is clear that something is going on, but none of the values are abnormal, they are just slightly outside what we would expect. Very often, a stroke is a result of drug use -- e.g. cocaine, it could be alcohol, or, what it sounds like in this case -- just bad luck. We usually administrer a blood thinner -- we use Fragmin -- for the first three months. Having had a stroke in itself increases makes you more prone to have another stroke, but if so, it usually takes place within three months of the first stroke. I suggest we do another MRI and angiogram towards the end of August. I think the main thing now is to ensure that she gets enough rest, that she gets plenty of rehabilitation training, and that we can get her to a more permanent location. After all, this is an acute unit where we are required by law to admit everyone with a stroke from a certain region. This is one of the reasons we shuffle patients around. Of course, having a large number of people on vacation does not help even though in theory we are supposed to be fully staffed at all times."

Yesterday A was better. I think I see improvements every day now. Small improvements, but nonetheless, improvements. She is starting to walk with more confidence -- still requiring assistance, still dizzy and prone to fall if not assisted, but she walks better. Her face is still asymetrical and botox-like on the right side, she still has an infection in her eye, but less so than what was the case on Sunday. She is in good spirits, chatting with the other patients, being on a first name basis with staff, and she is very motivated to be transferred to a rehab institution, something we expect will happen next week. Al in all, I am cautiously optimistic about the situation.

A and H have been on my fader´s boat since yesterday. They start school on Monday. S is quite upset by not having her mother around. H is less willing to admit that she misses her. I think we will find a nice routine during A´s absence from the household.

I will try to post these messages regularily in order to keep you posted of A´s progress. You can also follow the Twitter feeds which will be in English.

Best regards, C.