Settling In

She's in a good mood this morning. Little sluggish but she's coming around. Yesterday was a big day. I was gonna write about it last night but it wore me out just watching the paces that they're putting her through.

We're seeing them establish a routine for her. Breakfast shows up around 7:30. Charla's been staying in he room with Mom and has been fantastic about motivating her to do the things she can do on her own. The last two days Charla's coached Mom through feeding herself breakfast. She just runs out of gas later in the day and can't get the strength up yet to feed herself lunch or especially dinner, but right after waking up she has enough go-juice to get breakfast from plate to mouth.

Yesterday she brushed her own teeth, dressed herself with a little help and even tied her own shoes.

They come get her officially out of bed at around 10 am. They make the be behind her just so she won't be so inclined to want to climb right back in. She gets speech therapy for about an hour. They've instructed us on exercises we can do with her on our own time like getting her to make clicking sounds like a squirrel and walk through her vowel sounds.

Speech therapy goes for about an hour then they move her to occupational therapy

OT is designed to reteach her the things you and I take for granted like opening doors, tying shoes (check) an getting dressed (sort-of check). Practice, practice, practice.

By now it's time for lunch and a much-needed nap.

At around 2 they come get her for 2 hours of physical therapy. The gym. I'll tell you what, if they keep at it we're not going to be able to keep her out of Curves when she gets home. Today she walked all the down the hall and back!! There is light at the end of this tunnel after all...and it's a MOON!!

So the way I understand it the brain doesn't 'heal' itself in the traditional sense. Once brain cells are lost they don't come back. What happens is the brain figures out ways to reroute the signals to their appropriate destinations, that's why rehab is sooo important. The more she works at it the more the more opportunities the brain has to try new routes. It's kind of like Lily Tomlin's Ernestine sitting at her switchboard patching calls through but her switchboard's about half fried. She'll eventually be able to get most of the calls through, it'll just take her a while to figure out how.

Christi called while ago telling us Landry, her four-year-old, got up in front of his preschool class and proclaimed he had an announcement to make..."My GG had a 'spell'. Her eye doesn't work and she talks funny so when she comes to pick me up YA'LL BETTER NOT MAKE FUN OF HER!!!" He points his fingers at his eyes and then turns them slowly toward the class..."I'm watching you..."

-Clay