Building Connections

If every day was like today, wouldn't life be wonderful? Cloudless, cool morning. Hot Starbucks blonde coffee with cream for breakfast, ice water before lunch. Everyone's appointments and work projects and therapies going as scheduled, smooth as silk. Very happy to have today here with Mom.

Mom's therapy yesterday was thorough and exhausting, exactly as it should be. We are all very happy with the program here so far, speech and occupational therapy are good, and physical therapy is fantastic. Michael, the therapist here, is a slight person, but boy he sure knows how to instill confidence in Mom, and he's strong as a horse! Again, I have to say it's a great thing to find people in professions that they absolutely belong in. Those dedicated to caring for people, and helping them get better, when their heart is in it, you can absolutely tell. It shows through in their every movement, and it's reflected on the faces and in the spirits of their patients.

This morning, as Mom has already completed speech and physical therapy, and is awaiting her lunch, she's working on a word-search book. There are probably 40 words to find, and in 10 minutes she's already found 2. That's as many as someone without a crainiotomy would find. She's having no trouble reading the large print in the book, picked out a pretty 'chestnut' colored crayon (and pronounced the color right!) and has circled the words she's found, and crossed them off the list with zero trouble. How amazing is that? The therapist at Reliant said it might be hard to find a single word, and if after a while trying, you need to take a break, do that. So I think Mom is a superstar for being successful with 2 words already!

Special thanks to Mom's friends at school this week. Brandi had brought by a big basket FULL to the brim of cards and gifts a while back. Every day we're bring a handful of cards to Mom so that she can enjoy them. It's a special treat after a long day of working to read poems and silly pictures, and especially the names of her friends. (It's especially helpful for us when there are first and last names on the cards, hint hint!)

One especially funny card was of 2 Easter bunnies talking to each other. It was meant to be a silly card, but it served many purposes...

1. Mom got to read large printed words, and had no trouble.

2. Mom remembered her wonderful friend who sent it, and told us all about her.

3. Mom laughed at the funny bunnies, very cute drawings!

4. We asked mom the inferred questions, why are the bunnies saying what they are saying? She studied the picture and knew exactly why. One didn't have a butt and one didn't have any ears.

This is a very similar exercise to what her speech therapist has her do every day. Questions, pictures, things we all look at naturally and just automatically understand, Mom can visualize but the meaning doesn't always come out of her mouth correctly. But it's getting better, and the bunny card was so fun, because it was made by a friend, and it was exactly what she needed!

Thank you to all friends and family who are faithfully sending cards, pictures, blog posts, facebook messages, etc. Mom is too tired every day to receive visitors, but these little things she can read, have read to her, or can hold in her hand mean so much, and they connect her to you, and they help her build new connections in her brain as she recovers.