September 2, 2004

Russ is a lot more independent in therapy now. George-Anne drops him off at Kessler usually at 10:00 am and picks him up at 3:00pm or 4:00pm. This is good because he doesn’t have us over his shoulder all the time. On the other hand we don’t have a good handle on what is going on in therapy. For this reason we scheduled a family meeting last week. There is a large group of therapists who work with Russ now. We met with all of them except his speech therapist. In general they all say he is doing well. There are a few issues we need to deal with. One of the biggest issues is very common with brain injury patients. Russ does not recognize or at least he won’t admit that he has cognitive problems. This especially becomes a problem in therapy. The therapist will give him an assignment and he will refuse to do it. He will say that it is too easy or is not appropriate for someone his age. In most cases if he does work on the assignment he has more trouble with it than he thought he would. It is hard to tell if he knows he can’t do the assignment and is embarrassed or whether he really thinks he can do it easily and then gets upset when he can’t.

The therapists asked about his personality before the accident. They have noticed that he is outgoing with others and not afraid to express himself to anyone. They also say he frequently will become the leader of a group he is involved with. They gave us two examples. In one case he volunteered to become the moderator of a group he belongs to. He didn’t let his speech problem hold him back. He loaded key phrases into his keyboard and used them when needed. They said he did well as the moderator. On another occasion there was an issue brought up in a group which involved Kessler. Russ thought they shouold discuss it with Kessler’s director. He then went upstairs to his office, asked the secretary for a moment of his time and discussed what ever the issue was. This is so much like Russ before the accident. He was the President of his fraternity, a captain on his tennis team, and in general he was always looking to be involved leading any group he was part of.

Thanks for following his progress.

Bob