Athelstan update

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!grebyn.com!lojbab>]

It seems very slow to those of us here, and probably to all of you as well,
but Athelstan seems to be making rather significant and perhaps even rapid
recovery progress.

I haven't seen him in over a week, but I finally got a report from one of the
others who visit him (his roommate Liz).  Apparently he is now fully
conscious, "level 4" on the Rancho scale, as of last Tuesday or so.  This
means that he is awake, aware, but is veryu agitated and confiused.  He
has no short or long term memory, no awareness of his capabilities or
limitations.  Thus they have to keep him restarined so he doesn't hurt
himself.

But he clearly understands what people say to him, and tries to respond.
Unfortunately, particularly slow in his progress has been his speech control.
Most of the time when he tries to say things it comes out as unintelligible
mumbles - clearly words, which he can and will repeat if asked, but it takes
real effort for him to make himself understood.  Thus the only intelligible
response Liz got in a 20-minute visit was a smile when she jokingly said that
she must be deaf since she couldn't understand him.

Level 4 is the lowest level of consciousness, and often the hardest to deal w
with both for the recovering patient and visitors.  Hopefully he will move
on as quickly as he has progressed so far (a little more than a week per level).

For those not familiar with the Rancho scale, level 8 would be close to fully
recovered.  There is no expectation that he will reach that level as quickly
as he has gotten this far.

But as long as Atrhelstan continues to make consiistent progress, it is just
a waiting game, if rather a trying one.

lojbab