Paul's Update - 03/27/07

Dear Friends,

The weeks seem to go so fast ... I have been on vacation for the month and we stay busy. Dad & Paul have been working hard on walking and balance. The therapists have been working on new skills for Paul to master. The Physical therapist continues to have Paul work on exercises to strengthen his stomach & leg muscles. Tummy crunches and leg lifts mostly. She has also introduced an exercise that requires Paul to lie on his stomach and lift his head off the mat. This will help strengthen his neck and upper back muscles. She hopes that will help with his posture when he walks. The Occupational therapist works on small motor skills and thinking activities. She has him sort small objects, pick them up one at a time with each hand, arrange playing cards in the order of smallest number to largest, throwing balls & tying knots. He has a little trouble with the knots but he gets them started which is pretty good … practice will improve that. He seems to like the Occupational therapist and does more work for her without much complaint. The Physical Therapist works him pretty hard and she now has a student helper so they work together to create new things for him to do. Dad found out the other day that we are down to five therapy sessions left … two Physical Therapies and three Occupational Therapies. Since we’ve been doing each two time a week the therapists suggested that we cut back to one time a week for each until we use up the authorized time. Unfortunately that is all that the insurance company will pay for in 2008. The good thing is … he will soon have Medicare and we are hopeful that they will also authorize some therapy for 2008 … we’ll see! The Therapists are going to check on it for us! Dad plans to start going back to the gym once the therapies have been exhausted.

Every week we try our best to spend time with the Davis’s. Bill was gone to a bowling tournament last week so we spent some nice time with Ronda. We went out to dinner a couple of times with her … including Friday night! Paul enjoys our evenings out … he loves eating out … so do we! It was also Easter week. We had Max on Saturday night. He spent the night with us and went to SonRise service with us. We are at church all morning on Easter since I sing in the choir. Dad & Paul went home after breakfast at the church and Max stayed in the nursery at church. His Sunday School teachers (Ronda & Marty) had some special activities for the kids. Max is talking a bit more and loves spending time with Pap-Paw and Daddy. Even though he doesn’t get to see Daddy all the time, he seems to know who he is. You can tell him to go and give something to Daddy and he goes right to Paul. He loves giving kisses and Paul loves getting them from him!

This week has been another busy week. Paul & Dad went to therapy on Tuesday and Thursday. Paul did especially good on Thursday. Dad said he cooperated with everything the therapist asked him to do. He worked on some alphabet letters and did quite well. He has also been talking a bit more. It seems he is feeling pretty good. I don’t mention too many personal care things but since the accident Paul has been incontinent and has had to wear Depends undergarments. Over the last week (since last Thursday) Paul has been wearing regular boxer shorts. He seems to really appreciate being able to wear them and he makes sure Dad knows when he needs to get up to go to the bathroom! This is a wonderful improvement … both for Dad & for him! It is so nice when he can do “normal” things.

Next week it is “back to work” for me. It will be a busy week as we prepare for Bobby & Jen’s wedding next Saturday. Paul will be one of Bobby’s groomsman and we are anxious to witness him being able to walk down the isle and stand next to his brother as he marries his bride.

Have a great weekend, Lynne & Carl