Paul's Update - 01/20/08

Dear Friends:

This has been a most interesting week. With Dora & Gradis both gone we weren’t sure we would get a nurse for the week. Tuesday Paul had therapy at 1pm & 2pm. Dad had to take him by himself ... but it is certainly something Dad can handle. Physical therapy was first. Paul did more walking. She worked him pretty hard. The occupational therapist had him work on putting bottles on a shelf above his head, then take them back down while standing by himself. He was pretty tired from the PT and didn’t want to cooperate much. She had him separate some coins which he did OK at first but then he got bored with it and was just putting them in random order.

Wednesday morning we were expecting a male nurse to show up. When Dad woke the nurse was not here yet. When I went to leave for work at 8:30 he still wasn’t here. Dad called to find out what happened to him and was told that he was at Paul’s house and had been knocking at the door for an hour!! It turns out he was at Tabby’s house ... not ours!! He finally made it to our house after I left. He and Dad seemed to get along well. He is also from South Africa. His name is Mayah. He got to help Dad with getting Paul to the bathroom. Of course Dad watched him pretty closely to see how he would handle Paul if he began to lose his balance. Dad said he was very attentive and seemed prepared to intervene at the right moment to prevent Paul from losing his balance and falling down. Dad even allowed Mayah to walk Paul without his cane ... something he hasn’t let the other nurses do!

Thursday morning Dad woke to a wonderful surprise! We have a baby monitor in our bedroom to hear Paul during the night. Dad woke up to hear Paul COUNTING! He was saying “eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, he skipped sixteen and said “ow” then said seventeen. He also said something that Dad couldn’t understand. Dad got up to check on him and he realized at that time that Paul was still sleeping! This is VERY significant for a couple of reasons. First he doesn’t usually talk in his sleep and second ... he doesn’t usually count past ten by himself! WOW!!! It really shows us that there is more brain activity than we always get to see! Mayah got lost trying to get to our house. He is coming from Ft. Belvoir which is about a 45 minute drive from us. It was a therapy day and Dad was concerned that he wouldn’t arrive before he & Paul had to leave. He arrived about 9:25 ... they leave at 9:30am! Occupational Therapy begins at 10:30am. Dad, Paul & Mayah headed over to the hospital before it began to snow. We were expecting a pretty bad snow storm but it had not begun yet. The therapist asked Paul if he wanted to exercise his arms first or go to the table and work. He chose to work at the table. She took a piece of paper and drew a partial circle leaving a section open and a rectangle with one side open and a square with a piece missing. Paul was supposed to complete the drawings. She gave him a pen and he worked to draw the pictures. He did the circle easily and the triangle was easy too. She asked him what they were and gave him part of the sound of the word and he would complete the word. He was able to identify the word once she gave him part of the word!!! These are not words we work on so he actually knew what they were ... once you gave him a start! Then the therapist drew a big circle on a piece of paper and gave him scissors and told him to cut it out. He wasn’t interested in doing it but Dad helped him and got him started. Once he was cutting (while Dad held the paper) he decided that he could do it by himself. He took the paper from Dad and finished cutting out the circle. When he got almost to the finish of the circle he just cut the edge off and then went back and TRIMMED THE EDGE!! It is a little rough around the edge but he actually did a pretty good job! After she had him finish that he stood against the wall and put alphabet letters on post-it notes and he had to stick the notes on the wall while free standing. There wasn’t any order to the notes he just had to put them on the wall. He quickly figured out that he could rub the sticky part on the wall and it would stick! After they were all on the wall she had him take them off and put them in order. He would say the letter and then pull the letter off and put them in the right order. He did pretty good and only missed a few of the letters. After Occupational therapy Dad decided that it was snowing pretty hard and would be better to skip Physical therapy so they headed home. The rest of the day was spent at home watching it SNOW!! We got a couple of inches of heavy wet snow and some sleet and ice mixed in.

Friday was much clearer. The day was pretty quiet and Paul didn’t have any appointments. Dad & I had an appointment with the CPA that we hired to help us with the reporting we need to do as Guardians of Paul’s finances. That was at 3pm. After we got home the nurse went home a bit early so he could get a new tire for his car. He had a flat in the snow on Thursday on the way home!! We went out to dinner with Bill & Ronda. We went to Carraba’s in Centreville. We hadn’t been there before and we really enjoyed dinner.

Saturday was more normal than we’ve had lately. We actually got a chance to go to El Agave which we had not done for several weeks since everyone has been sick! Paul enjoyed his lunch but he got sick on the way back home. I wasn’t feeling really well on the trip either. Alysa was with us for the day. She also spent the night Saturday night. She’s been wanting to spend the night with Grandma & Pap-Paw!

Sunday we went to breakfast with Bill & Ronda. Mayah was suppose to come but he wasn’t here when we left so we put a note on the door for him. He was parked out front in his car when we got back!! He went to church with us. Paul was feeling pretty good. Max came over and went to Sunday School & church. He spent the day with us. Paul really enjoys watching him. Many times we see Paul smiling when he watches Max. It is nice to see that kind of emotion out of Paul ... we don’t get much of it so it is very special for us! In the afternoon Max was playing with his Popcorn popper toy. As he pushes it along the floor the balls in it “pop” and it has sound that counts as he does this. Paul was watching him as he went passed his Daddy and then all of a sudden ... out of the blue ... Paul said “nine ... ten”!!! He was COUNTING THE SOUNDS!!! He did this without ANY prompting. WOW ...and WOW! Dad & I looked at each other and were amazed! Paul never just volunteers any speech ... he only speaks AFTER we speak to him. Again ... proof that there is brain activity that we don’t see most of the time! When Mommy came to get Max it was time for kisses before he left. He went around the room and gave out kisses. He stood next to Daddy’s chair and Paul reached down to give him a kiss. Then he climbed in Daddy’s lap to give him a kiss and hug. Paul had a smile from ear to ear. He really enjoys this interaction with Max. Mayah left about 6pm and told us that he had spoken with the nursing agency. It appears that Dora is back in the country and should be back to work on Monday! We are going to be very glad to see her back!! We watched the football game with Green Bay and the NY Giants in the evening and Paul stayed up pretty late. He didn’t go to bed until after 11:30PM.

Have a Great Day! (holiday for some!) ... Lynne & Carl