Paul's Update - 06/20/07

Dear Friends:

Tuesday I was not feeling well and stayed home from work. Dad, Paul & Dora headed out at about 9:15am for Physical Therapy. Paul seemed to feel pretty good. He was talking a little more ... normal stuff ... "hi" ... "hi" ... "how are you?" ... "good", "you ready to work?" ... "yes". Cathy seems to get a lot out of Paul these days. I think he likes her. She had him work at the parallel bars again. At first she had the bars too low and he had trouble with them. Once she raised them he was able to step up and down on the box. He was also able to step onto and off of the trampoline while keeping his balance. He didn't want to do the balance beam but Cathy wasn't too worried about that. Once he had finished with the parallel bars she had him step onto a new machine where he has to balance himself on a pivotal platform. She had to hold him and keep him from losing his balance but considering it was the first time he'd used this machine he did pretty good. After Paul got home he had lunch and watched TV for a bit. He decided after a bathroom trip that he wanted to go out to the laundry room and do some exercises on the weight machine. Dad said he did the leg lifts and arm weights and then worked out with the hand weights. He had a pretty good workout. We had Popeye's chicken for dinner but Paul decided he wanted the Catfish. He really enjoyed it. I had vacation bible school after dinner. Max came by and visited with Dad & Pap-Paw for about an hour and a half. Tabby called Paul on the phone and talked to him for quite a while. He really does like talking on the phone. Wednesday was mostly quiet for Paul. It was raining when we got up. After breakfast he wanted to go out to the weight room to do some exercises again. It is nice that he WANTS to go out there! Dad talked to the neurologist this morning to see if he could come and get a copy of the MRI results from a few weeks ago. Thursday Paul will go to see a new doctor that will analyze him for future therapies. This doctor is experienced in determining what kinds of therapy a patient would benefit from. Hopefully Paul will cooperate well enough for him to evaluate where he really is in his recovery. While Dad was at the doctor he checked on getting an anti-depressant for Paul since we are seeing so much lack of interest in doing things that we KNOW he can do ... or at least he USE to do! The doctor prescribed Trazadone which is a drug that Paul has actually taken before. We thought it was a sleep agent but evidently it is actually an antidepressant. Paul stayed up until about 10pm after taking this new drug and was so tired he had trouble walking to bed. Hopefully he will adapt to this new medicine quickly and we pray that it will help him feel more like cooperating.

Have a great day! Lynne & Carl