Friday, June 5

Wow busy day:

Every one made it safely into town today.

And today we have a guest speaker:

I've learned why Nambs loves it here so much... It's really beautiful here.
Great to be joined by May and brother Larry today.
First a few clarifications... Contrary to popular belief in the greater Seattle area and who knows where else, Teri's name isn't Teri. It's Maria. Her Mom wanted to name her Theresa but her Dad won that battle. Dad called her Teri for short anyway so that's how it went till she had to actually use a name that was documented.
After she straightened me out on that I helped her out with some Seattle name stuff: Deano's last name is Coles. (He's a childhood neighbor) Dean's name is Nambs (or Namboid). Tim's last name is DiMarco (sorry about the spelling Tim). I'm Hags (Hrags), not Tim. When I showed up Nambs was expecting Tim, not me. It all worked out though.
My observations on Nambs yesterday and today: He's way in there when you look in his eyes and he's working his way out. It takes several moments for our questions to sink in and several more for his response. If there are no distractions his responses are mostly accurate. His Physical Therapists (I wish this thing had spell-check) tell me he is improving along these lines.
Yesterday I got to see him roll over to his left side unassisted several times. He has to really concentrate to drag his right leg over but he does it. Interestingly when he's doing his PT his brain works much faster and you can tell he is really focused. At PT they had him work on standing up from his wheelchair between parallel bars. His right arm can't help yet but he does most of the work himself. He took a couple very short steps with lots of help today. His left side is really strong but I could see his right quad flexing. He's chewed ice and swallowed so the Nilla Wafer therapy should be coming soon. I expect drastic improvement at that time.
I've been lucky to join Teri (Maria!) on the emotional roller coaster during my stay. It's heart-wrenching to see Nambs now compared to last Christmas when he visited us but it's equally overwhelming to see him standing himself up and working so hard. Things could be so much worse...
That being said, I encourage you to visit if you can. Nambs will give you a big "cowboy-grin" followed by hand holding and maybe a hug. It sure worked for me...
Thanks Teri for letting me blog tonight. (Or did you just want the night off?!)
Hags