Pain and Progress

Greg has started the therapy process, and we're really hopeful that the doctors and nurses at UPMC Southside will be able to help him with our major concerns right now: recover his speech, be able to use his right hand, and walk. We've already seen great progress with his walking, though anything more than a short distance is laborious. He is able to communicate, but he has issues with a lot of words and things like letter order. We're hoping to get some more concrete answers about how his speech works as therapy continues.
Part of today's therapy involved shocking his right arm. Not exactly sure how that works, but the end result is that, for the first time since the accident last Wednesday, he is able to flex his fingers on his right hand, albeit only with great effort.
One of the most frustrating parts of this part of Greg's recovery is the level of pain he's feeling. As directed by his doctors, his pain medication has been lowered significantly. It's amazing to think that one week ago today he had a breathing tube in and was sedated, waiting for brain surgery, but there is a lot of pain associated with head trauma and surgery. We want to make sure that Greg is able to concentrate and focus on recovering, which is hard enough by itself, but is next to impossible if he's in constant pain, so we hope the staff at UPMC Southside can find a balance.
It is really hard to see Greg in pain.