Paul's Update - 08/09/07

Dear Friends:

Tuesday morning Paul had a doctor appointment. Once Paul was up, dressed and had breakfast they left to go to Dr. Stonerock's office. She is Paul's general practitioner. She checked Paul to see how he is doing on the Adderal (the medicine for ADD). She took a few minutes to fill out an evaluation form that is needed for the court as part of the process for us to obtain guardianship of Paul. Our attorney is waiting for this paperwork so she can finalize the guardianship process. After they finished at the doctor's office Dad decided it was a good day to get out of the house. Dad, Paul and Dora went to pick up Carolyn, Alysa & Chris. They took the van and went for a ride towards Front Royal and back down through Warrenton and into Manassas. It was a very hot day (close to 100 degrees) but that didn't spoil their day. They rode for a couple of hours. When I got home from work (somebody has to work!! LOL) I told Dad that we were invited to dinner at Bill & Ronda's. It was Vikki's birthday ... her 18th birthday. This is a big day for her! We celebrated with sloppy joes (her choice) and we had an ice cream cake once she spent two tries to blow out her candles! Paul enjoyed his dinner & cake. There were several of Vikki's friends there to celebrate with her and Paul seemed to enjoy the energy in the house. Missy was also there with Lou & Serenity! Paul had to WALK up the stairs in their house. They have about 10 steps up to the living room (it is a split foyer) and he was able to manage them with Dad behind him keeping him steady. Wow ... being able to do steps opens up a whole new world for us! We stayed until almost 11pm and when we got home Paul didn't want to go to bed. Dad let him sit up for a while but soon Dad was too tired to stay up himself and he took Paul to bed.

Wednesday morning was Occupational Therapy at 9:30am. Dad said he parked at the far end of the parking lot and Paul walked all the way across and upstairs to the therapy room. He is getting so strong!! He used the new walker that used to be Grandma Johnson's. He seems to do really well with it. Paul did really good for the therapist. She had him do some "connect the dots" on a piece of paper. She also had him set a table setting. She gave him a fork, spoon, plate & napkin and he had to set the place setting while standing up. He had to separate the cups that were stacked together and placed them on the table. She had him take a deck of cards and she wanted him to shuffle them. He wouldn't do that but she told him to deal out five cards. He proceeded to count out five cards ... and then stopped when he got to five!! They played a game of War and Paul beat her! After OT they went to speech. He did good for her and repeated everything she asked him to. They did the alphabet and looked at pictures that he had to identify (i.e., eyes, nose, ears). They counted to twenty. Most of therapy is him just repeating things over and over. After therapy Dad had errands to run so they didn't go to the gym. Dora wanted to leave at 5pm and it would not allow enough time to do his exercises and get back home. I came home from work to find Paul & Dad sitting on the deck. It was HOT out there! Paul wanted to go out there but they came back in the house in a short time!! We had a quiet dinner at home and spent the night watching TV. While Paul was watching TV the base rocker chair appeared to break. Dad needed to turn it over and check and found that two screws came loose on it. Paul needed to move to the couch so dad could do that. When he was standing Dad gave him the quad cane and Paul took about five steps using the cane. He still has a lot of balance problems and the cane makes him have to rely on balance more than walker. He actually did OK and we will practice this more.

Thursday Dad got Paul up and dressed and headed out about 9:30 to pick up Carolyn, Alysa & Chris. They headed up to Skyline Drive for a ride. There were no appointments so it was a good day for that. It was a bit hazy but they could still see down into the valley. They saw one deer and a groundhog but not many animals were out. Carolyn packed lunches for everyone so they had a picnic on the mountain. Paul had to walk at the picnic grounds to the restroom and it was a long way. It was probably 800ft ±. After getting home Dad took a little nap while Dora sat with Paul. It was bible study night and Ronda brought some home made noodles & chicken for dinner. I was telling Ronda after the study about our visit with Tye, Laura, Nikki & Kerrin last weekend. While we were visiting Kerrin told Paul that if he smiled for her she would give him a kiss on the cheek. Of course we know ... he loves kisses (not to mention pretty girls) and he immediately gave her the biggest smile. He even did this TWICE!! When I told Ronda about this I looked over at Paul ... and he was smiling like a Cheshire cat! He apparently liked remembering that event! I love when he smiles ... especially when it is done without us asking him to! After all went home from bible study we watched TV for a bit and Paul started falling asleep in his chair about 11:15pm so Dad took him off to bed. Friday will be speech and they will go to the gym.

Have a great weekend! TGIF Lynne & Carl