Paul's Update - 07/08/07

Dear Friends:

This weekend has been pretty quiet. Paul is feeling pretty good but hasn't been very active. Dad & Dora took Paul to his general practitioner at 11:30am. Dr. Stonerock is the doctor that prescribed the medicine to increase brain tissue growth and also the medicine to increase synapses activity. Dad told her that Paul refused to take the anti-depressant that Dr. Levinstone prescribed and she said "Goooood!!! That medicine decreases brain activity ... he's better off without it"!! She was pleased that he wasn't having any agitated behavior from the new medicine and decided to increase the medicine for the synapses activity. He was taking 20mg of Adderall a day and she increased it to 30mg a day. He will go back in a month to see how he is doing. We all went to dinner at the Chinese Restaurant in Centreville (Dad, Paul, Ronda, Bill & I). Paul was extremely thirsty. The waiter there is prompt to refill the water glasses and Paul drank four glasses of water before his dinner arrived! He had Lemon Chicken with Tea and he only ate about half of it ... probably since he was full from water!! Once we got home Paul stayed outside with us until almost 10:30pm. We had been talking about the new medicine at dinner and when Dad went to give Paul his medicines at 10:30pm he REFUSED to take it. He didn't want to take ANY of his meds!! We tried to encourage him that we weren't giving him any medicines that would hurt him! After about 20 minutes Dad tried again and he took it. We certainly don't need him refusing to take his anti-seizure medicine!!

Saturday morning Dad & Gradis took Paul to the Freedom Center. He worked out and did really good. They worked on legs and calves. Dad set the weights at 110lbs. They didn't increase the weights this time. He rode the bike for about 10 minutes. They did some back extensions and worked out his arms. Dad had him extend his arms almost all the way up with some help. His arms are still a little stiff and Dad wants to work some of that stiffness out of them. Dad said he was impressed with the workout. We went to El Agave in the afternoon about 3pm. Paul ate the chicken tenders, cheese sticks and french fries. He must have been hungry ... he ate almost all of his lunch. He really likes using his hands to eat ... finger food is easier to eat!! Carolyn came over with Alysa & Chris after we got home. We all sat out in the yard for a while. It was a beautiful day. Chris is such a good baby and I got some really good "grandma time" in. She stayed until about 9:30pm and Dad, Paul & I sat outside on the swing for about another 1/2 hour before going inside. Paul actually went to bed pretty early ... 10:30pm.

Sunday we got up and headed out to breakfast. Paul said he didn't want to go but Dad asked him if he wanted to get eggs, bacon, toast and juice for breakfast and he said "yes". We had a good breakfast and when we got home Max arrived to go to Sunday School with us. It was nice having all of my grandchildren in church today!! We kept Max for the afternoon. He was really tired when we got home but he wanted to play with Pap-Paw and Alysa and wouldn't lay down to rest. Carolyn went out with Alicia after church so Alysa came home with us. After they left around 3pm Max finally fell asleep and took about an hour nap. After Max went home this evening Paul & I worked on some speech therapy. He worked with numbers, alphabet & names. I also had him work on trying to write on a white board. He has a lot of trouble managing a pen. He was finally able to put the marker on the board and made a small line. It is a start but he needs lots of practice with this. After we finished that I worked on having him identify the day of the week on a calendar. He can do the days of the week in order. He has a little trouble along the way but with a little prompting he can do it! Monday will be Paul's occupational therapy with Ruby at Fair Oaks Hospital. This will be a busy therapy week ... OT on Monday, OT & Speech on Wednesday and Speech on Friday!