60-day followup

It's hard to believe that it has been 60 days at home.

Linda had her two month followup with Dr. Rupright today, which meant we were back at Rusk this afternoon. Linda took her canes which impressed everyone greatly. Unfortunately her gloating was slightly tarnished when she fell on her behind in the gym. Everyone was pretty shaken up by that, except Linda. Lyndsay half caught her, so she didn't actually hit the ground hard. Linda was a bit frustrated since she hates to fall, and laid her head on the floor. Unfortunately that made it look like she hit her head, and that shook them up even more.

Dr. R said that Linda is the best-of-class recovery he has seen in his entire career for the kind of stroke Linda had. She had achieved twice as much since she left Rusk as what he expected. At one point, when he asked her to stand up from the bed she was sitting on, she did it without pushing off. He said he had never seen a locked-in patient progress to do that. (Linda has been practicing that particular skill like mad lately, trying to get it perfect.)

All in all, he was completely delighted by her progress and expects her to continue to improve. He jovially commented that pretty soon we'll be seeing her without the canes, and Linda told him he could plan on it.

I told the doc about the insurance company's intention to declare Linda's therapy not medically necessary. He was not particularly impressed by that, and stated that she will require anywhere from 6 to 12 months of ongoing therapy. I expect that professional opinion to be pretty helpful with things. Thankfully, Dr. R has about as much confidence (some might say arrogance) as Linda has determination to make a recovery, so don't look for him to be cowed by any mere insurance company.

He will order 3 months of therapy to take Linda until her next followup visit, and he specifically wrote an order for her to continue speech therapy. I think he was particularly unimpressed by the way they did a "bait and switch" on Linda, offering to cover outpatient speech to coax her home and discontinuing it a month later as a non-covered expense.