Angela's Blog

Last night brought new and exciting changes.  While Angela still awoke every two hours, last night she was able to sit up and rearrange herself, lay back down, cover herself and go back to sleep without any calling out, whining, fear, or even noise.   She did this from 9:00pm to 4:00am.   While I did not sleep soundly, it was a blessing to be able to peep out from half closed eyelids to watch that she was taking fine care of herself.   

This morning we extended Ang's therapy to include a "home visit".   We bundled up against the rain and wind and drove her over to a friend's house for tea.   We sat on the couch and visited and it was ever so homey.   The car ride is still a bit much but with more practice we think we will see more improvement.   It was such fun.

Speech therapy focused on short term memory.   The ST therapist told her his story and then asked her questions about the story to see how much she could recall.   While recalling 23 of 30 facts was impressive enough, it was even more fun to watch Angela tease the ST guy for being a discus person in high school.   She asked him how he impressed the girls ...  didn't seem discus would have done it for her.   

Off to PT where we continue to focus on strengthening the leg muscles to make the walking more perfect.   A LOT of hard work and it ends up with all of us cheerleading away to get a few more steps.   Buster, the dog, helped today by being the goal line for the length of the journey.   Way to go, Buster!

The PT therapist told Angela that tomorrow they were going to try walking with no cane.   WOW.... this raised HIGH ANXIETY in Angela so please pray for lower anxiety, strength in the leg, amazing courage from Angela, and all of us remembering to breathe.....   We shall see.

In OT we were quite successful in distracting Angela with jokes, introductions of her brother, sister-in-law, and baby, and retelling weekend antics to the therapist...resulting in an exceptionally good stretching of the shoulder and elbow.   Tomorrow promises to include work with the Amgen goodies to pipette, set up tubes, and explain myriad things that occur with items like this.   OT asked for two sessions tomorrow so we could focus on shoulder/elbow in one session and wrist/fingers in the other.  Pray Angela sleeps! ! !

Every day more and more comes back.  Her humor, her comments, her fears, her hopes, her areas where it is hard to trust, her love of family and friends with special emphasis on Josh!   It warms a mother's heart to have all this firing in her brain....   It also brings with it a sense of anticipation because one never knows what might come spilling out of the little one.   I do not have one of those censor bleepers ...   

We have heard that plans are brewing for Harborview but no decisions have been reached yet.   We are comfortable that the persons on both ends have Angela's best interest at heart and we are excited to hear their recommendations.    We appreciate the prayers for discernment because that is an area where Josh and I are continuing to pray.   We do not want to hold Ang back but we also do not want to lose ground by moving too quickly.

Big hugs to all of you for all your continued encouragement, support, love, and prayers.   All Angela asks for right now is prayers.   

Big hugs.

Teresa