Paul's Update - 11/28/07

Dear Friends:

Sunday we went to breakfast with Bill & Ronda. They didn’t have the kids so it was just the five of us. After breakfast we went back to the house and Max arrived to go to Sunday School. Ronda had Max & Chris in the nursery class. Max is very good with Chris ... he was trying to share his toys with Chris! It was very cute to watch! After church we headed home and spent the afternoon with Max. Football is the word of the day on Sunday ... even when it is disappointing! Max was here until about 7pm.

Monday we got up early and headed to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond. We are participating in a study of the effects of brain injury on survivors and their families. We had an appointment at 11am but that means we have to leave our house around 8am. We stopped and got breakfast on the way. Dora went with us. Our meeting ended about 1:15pm. We arrived back home around 4:00pm. Since it was my birthday we decided to go out to dinner. We waited until Dora went home at 7pm before we headed out. We went to Sweetwater Tavern in Centreville. Carl and I had the Crab Cakes and Paul had ... Salmon! He was really hungry and ate everything on his plate!! It was all delicious! Paul stayed up until almost 11pm before he was ready for bed.

Tuesday we had someone coming to do repairs on our boiler so Carolyn and Chris came over and stayed while Dad & Paul were at Physical Therapy. They worked on walking and balance most of the time. After PT Paul had Occupational Therapy. Paul was pretty worn out from the PT. She always works on stretching Paul’s muscles first. They worked on tossing balls. He would throw them to Dad and Dad would throw them back to him. He is getting better at throwing and catching. They worked on sticking pegs in a pegboard. He had to fill in a row of pegs. He would pick them up two at a time and maneuver them in his hands to put them in the board one at a time! They also worked with a jar that had coins in it. He was sitting on the floor and he had to bend over to pick up the jar. He had to dump the coins out on a table. The therapist put out a quarter, a penny and a nickel. She told him to move the quarter over to the side ... which he did. Then she had him pick out which coins were the quarters. He found them and stacked them into a pile! He likes sorting the coins and stacking them according to what kind of coin they are! Then he had to pick up the coins and put them in the jar. He would pick them up three at a time in a stack and put them in the jar. He dropped a penny on the floor so the therapist moved the table out of the way and asked him to pick it up. He had to bend over and reach for it but he was able to get it and put it in the jar!! Dad & Paul got home about 3:45pm. Dad & I had eye doctor appointments at 4pm so we headed right back out. We got home in time for me to fix a quick dinner before I went back out to have my hair done. I spent a lot of time getting my suitcase ready for our trip. We leave on Friday and I hadn’t started packing yet. Paul stayed up until 11pm.

Wednesday Paul had another OT appointment at 9:30am. This is a different therapist but they all start out with stretching Paul’s muscles. She told Dad that she thought he might benefit from muscle relaxers. I’m not sure we really want to go there again!! She had a plastic erector set. Paul had to build an airplane. It is a simple plan but he had to look at a picture that had five steps to follow. He had to figure out which pieces went together and it even had a little chair that he had to screw in. He seemed to follow directions quite well ... the therapist had to give him some hints but he did the work! That used up most of the therapy session. We had to have the guy come back to finish working on the boiler in the afternoon. It looks like we are going to have to order some parts but the boiler is working!! Yahoo! Dora (the nurse) informed us this afternoon that her dad passed away yesterday. It looks like she is going to Ghana in December for about 2½ weeks. She called Gradis (the weekend nurse) to see if she could cover for her and she agreed. We will miss Dora but Gradis will be very helpful while she is gone. A visiting nurse from the home health care agency came today. Paul was sitting in his chair with a blanket. The nurse said he was going to take Paul’s blood pressure so Paul took his arms out from under the blanket and held his arm up so the nurse could do the blood pressure cuff on it! He just did a general check of Paul’s vital signs. This is just a routine follow-up appointment so the agency knows how Paul is doing. Dad went and picked up Max at the daycare about 6pm. Mommy was running late so he got to spend some time with us. Paul was not feeling well this evening. His stomach was upset and he complained of a headache. Dad gave him some Tums and Tylenol. He didn’t really want to go to bed but Dad convinced him to go to bed about 11:30pm. Hopefully he will be feeling better Thursday!

Have a great day, Lynne & Carl