Paul's Update - 11/22/07

Dear Friends:

This has been a busy week for all of us. Unfortunately most of the week Carl, Paul & I have all been fighting a terrible cold. We started off Monday pretty slowly. Dad said Paul had appointments at 1pm & 2pm so we took our time with breakfast. I tried to get some cleaning done while they were watching TV. At 10am the phone rang ... it was the therapist’s office wondering where Dad & Paul were. Evidently Dad got his appointment times confused and the appointment for Monday was actually at 9:30am and the back to back (1pm-2pm) appointments were suppose to be on Tuesday. It was too late to reschedule for that same day so the secretary managed to reschedule Paul for a “make-up” time on Wednesday. Dad asked Paul if he wanted to go to the gym and he said “yes” but when it came time to go Paul wouldn’t budge. He can be so stubborn sometimes. Paul has been struggling to walk this week. It’s possible that all the congestion is causing some balance problems. He has gotten better at getting up from the chair by himself though. My new chair sits him a little higher up and gives him a good position to stand from. Dad had to catch him from falling a couple times. The ladies group from our church paid Paul a visit in the evening with a Thanksgiving Basket of fruit. They stayed and visited Paul for about 15 minutes (they had other stops to make). Paul enjoyed the company ... he usually enjoys company!! We put the vaporizer in his room when it was bedtime. He hasn’t needed any cough medicines ... only nose spray and Tylenol. He didn’t sleep well according to Dad who hears every noise he makes at night.

Tuesday Dad took Paul to PT at 1pm. When they arrived at the hospital they got to the front lobby and the receptionist there asked Dad “do you want a wheelchair for him?”. Dad said “no, he needs to do the walking”. He walked a little more towards the elevator and another lady there said “do you want a wheelchair?”. Again Dad said “no” but Paul said “yes”. She asked him if he knew where he was going and he said “yes” so she said “go ahead then” but he refused to take another step. I guess we need to give him a break ... after all ... he isn’t feeling well!! When they got to the therapy room the therapist wanted to see Paul walk with his cane. He walked down the hallway to the elevator and back. When he got to the turn in the hallway she had him back himself into the “V” of the two walls. She had him stand there without the cane, not touching anything. She told Paul she was going to gently push him and see if he could resist her and keep his balance. She did that about five times and he seemed to do pretty good with it. He really seems to have better balance each day. Then while standing she had him turn at the waist and look over his shoulder and then turn to the other side and look over his other shoulder while balancing himself. After he did that they went to the bar on the wall and walked backwards down the hallway. He does pretty good with this but you have to watch that he doesn’t reach too far back with his hand and lean into it or try to turn around and see where he is going ... he will lose balance when he does that! At 2pm they had OT. The therapist was a student. She had him sit in the wheelchair and she stretched his arms a bit. She got him to take a softball size ball away from her at different angles. She would make him reach above his head and from side to side to reach it. He had to stretch to get it some of the time. She had him reach in the crate and grab a ball and reach his hand straight out and drop the ball into another crate. By the time they got home Paul was pretty tired out. We went out and got Popeye’s chicken for dinner since I was feeling terrible and didn’t want to cook. Funny thing is ... Paul ALWAYS has their FISH! He doesn’t like their chicken. He was feeling pretty bad during the evening. His nose is very stuffy and his voice is horse. The vaporizer seems to help him along with the nose spray. He didn’t sleep much better but then…none of us did.

Wednesday was Paul’s birthday. He is now 27 years old. He was suppose to have therapy but the therapist called and said she had trouble getting a babysitter for her child and had to cancel. That’s OK ... a day at home is good when your sick! I stayed home too. I spent most of the day in bed! Bobby came by and visited in the afternoon. Paul always enjoys visiting with his older brother. Max was here at 3pm since the babysitter was getting ready to go away for Thanksgiving. The weather was in the 60’s and Max enjoyed playing out in the front yard with Pap-Paw and Uncle Bob. Max had brought his Daddy a birthday present ... a movie and a card. Max signed the back of the card ... it looked like scribble to the naked eye but I understand it actually said “I love you”!! We didn’t do cake or celebrate the birthday since we were going to do that on Thursday along with Thanksgiving dinner! Paul got a card from Nana Richard that he opened by himself!! Once it was open, he pulled the card out by himself!! I read him the card and then he had a second envelope with some money in it. Nana & Granddad Richard always sent the amount of money equal to your age for our birthdays ... so he had $27. Paul started taking each bill and laying them on his stomach ... one by one. I asked “are you counting it?” and Paul said “yes”! When he was done I asked him how much it was ... he said “ow”, so I said “Twe” and he said “twenty-five”. I helped him count them again and he followed along with me and did the counting out loud. He did better that way. The interesting thing about this is not only that he did most of the opening and counting by himself ... but he thought it was 25 which would have been the next birthday just after his accident!!! I’m not sure if he remembered that he should be turning 25??? ... hmmm!! Dad said that the other day Paul paid attention to his house when they drove by it which he usually doesn’t do. Dad asked him if he remembered it being his house and he said “yes”. Maybe he is having more memories of his life! I wish he could tell us! We had a quiet evening and Paul went to bed at 9pm since he still feels terrible. He seemed to sleep better.

Thursday morning we got up and started getting ready for our family to arrive for Thanksgiving Dinner. Carolyn came over with Chris and we began preparing food. Dad & Paul were warming up the chairs in the living room. All the family started arriving around noon and we had our dinner about 2pm. There was plenty of food and I don’t think anyone went away hungry ... if they did it was their own fault! LOL We had cake and sang “happy birthday” to Paul after dinner. He only had two candles on his cake ... the 2 & 7 number candles. He had to try two times but he blew out his candles by himself. Everyone stayed until about 5pm. We spent the evening watching a Dudley Moore movie called Santa Clause. I’ve never seen it before ... it was pretty good. I am mindful of how much we have to be thankful for. I was remembering the other day that it was only New Year’s Even last year when Paul stood up by himself for the very first time. I look at where we are today and praise God for our blessings!!

I hope you had a Blessed Thanksgiving!

Have a great day, Lynne & Carl