Bunn's Prairie

Target Field Tour

Andy — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:32:57 +0000

The Minnesota Twins have been kind enough to donate a tour of Target Field to Kaley’s fundraiser. The tour is at 6:30pm on Wednesday September 15. Please contact me (Andy) if you’re interested in attending. Cost is $50 / person and $42 of that is tax deductible.

Expensive!

Andy — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:58:37 +0000

Wow, PT is expensive. To have a traditional physical therapist visit Kaley twice a week and a non-traditional therapist visit her every other week, comes out to nearly $1400! Currently we have about $5K set aside for therapies but that will last less than 3 months! We so need this fundraiser.

New Wheelchair

Andy — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:30:44 +0000

Kaley got fitted for her new custom wheelchair last week. It works and looks great. I’ll leave guessing the color up to the reader. I’ll give you 1 guess.

I haven’t scheduled the PT yet as I was overseas for work last week but it’s only todo list this week. Kaley’s been making small improvements physically and mentally on her own however.

PT Eval Goals

Andy — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:25:35 +0000

While I’m not sure how attainable some of these goals are, the 6 month goals the PT person laid out for Kaley are as follows:

* Consistent 1 person transfers
* Stand with minimal assistance for up to 30 minutes
* In and out of bed with minimal assistance
* walk with minimal assistance
* more outings with family in their own cars

Seems like goals 1 and 5 are very attainable. 2 through 4 seem much more challenging. Not to say Kaley can’t do it. I would never say that, but they seem like stretch goals.

PT Needs to Start Now

Andy — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:52:53 +0000

Got a report from the group home folks that Kaley has started to not support her weight and get very frustrated and confused as to what she’s supposed to do when doing pivot transfers. Not always but its happened a couple of times. That’s enough for a couple of the staff members to start using the hoyer lift to transfer her. This will only rob her of even more strength. So I’m working on getting some level of PT going now. I need to figure out how to make our funds last until our fundraiser. PT costs about $1000 per month, so this is going to take some doing.

No Update on PT

Andy — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:11:41 +0000

The PT eval went well. Now it’s a matter of making our money last out until our the fundraiser we’re planning. One session with the alternative PT and one session with a traditional PT per week runs about $1000 per month. Not sure if that’s a reasonable amount of PT but that’s the cost. My thought is to go every other week with halving the cost. At least until our fundraiser and we have more money to work with.

If you’d like to help donate money before the fundraiser, you can see the details of how to do so here: Make a donation

PT Eval Scheduled for Friday

Andy — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 04:54:42 +0000

I have scheduled a PT evaluation with a physical therapist who, in addition to doing PT, also does some alternative treatments which, as it was explained to me, will make Kaley (at a cellular level) more able to participate in PT. No idea if it will work or not, but worth trying. The eval is free!

Otherwise Kaley’s been doing fairly well lately. She’s been pretty with it the past week when I’ve been visiting her. Fortunately/unfortunately she’s been more aware of what she’s missing in life. Unfortunately I’ve not been much help in this regard as I’ve been trying to talk to her about it. Maybe that’s for the best, I don’t really know anymore.

Move Cancelled

Andy — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:37:22 +0000

After much soul searching, I decided it best to keep Kaley up in Maple Grove close to her parents in an environment that she clearly feels comfortable in and is doing well. So Kaley will not be moving to St. Anthony on June 18th after all.

In unrelated news (just kidding on that part, as it is clearly related) I am reclaiming half my weekend and will now be taking Saturday’s “off” and focusing and taking care of Andy.

Wheelchair Approved!

Andy — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:24:10 +0000

Got a letter from Medical Assistance (MA) that Kaley’s customized wheelchair has been approved!

Kaley Move Scheduled

Andy — Sun, 23 May 2010 01:16:49 +0000

Found out from the group home staff that Kaley is scheduled to move closer to home (i.e. St. Anthony) on June 17! This will have a significant impact on my daily commute. I’ll update the map to Kaley after the move is done.

Also, I have published chapter 3 of “The Story of Bunn”. Kaley had written this before her brain injury, but hadn’t published it. I’ve been sitting on it for who knows why and figured why not put it out there for people to see.