"Saturday was a great day for Dar"

03-01-2009

1314 hours

To the left is a picture of Dar's mom and dad at Lake Tahoe celebrating her dads 70th birthday. Was a great day on the lake and dad even para-sailed. They all had a great day.

Well, its been a few days since my last post and much has happened.

Dar, continues to progress and we had a totally awesome day Saturday. When I arrived she was sleeping but when I asked her to wake she was as always glad to hear my voice.

I brought her new clothes and did'nt do the math quite right between visits. I was one change of clothes short between visits. So, while she was being dressed for the day I went to the laundra mat and washed up all of her clothes. When I returned she was already up in her chair and off to therapy. I found her in the gym with her O/T therapist. Linda told me that Dar had a good session but slept thru the whole thing and never even gave a smile. Well, we could not have that so I asked Dar to wake and give us a smile. She did, and so started a great day of laughter and fun. We spent over an hour outside with her new blanket keeping her warm and enjoying the outdoors. She even got to see Maverick, talk about excited. I'm not sure who was more. It was really fun to see Dar laugh and have a good time.

As the sun disappeared late in the morning we moved into the lobby of the hospital. We sat by the windows and chatted and talked and Dar laughed alot. We visited with Chris froim the hospital and he got to see first hand some of Dar's progress. Chris got her to laugh and smile some too. We chatted about hospital stuff and Dar for quite awile and it was good to chat with Chris.

One of the things that I learned that Dar started doing this week was when Dr. Waters was with her Dar appeared to be in discomfort. Dr. Waters asked Dar to close her mouth and take a deep breath and breath thru her nose. Dar did as asked. Now you may think this is no big thing but this is huge. This was the first time Dar has followed a specific command and completed the task. She did this on Wednesday.I am told that she did this twice. This is HUGE

Well, I decided to see if Dar could continue doing this while I was with her. I am proud to say that Dar did the same thing for me several times while we were on our little outting. But wait, it gets better. Dar followed my request on several occasions while we were out and about, but while the day continued I would ask her to close her mouth and put her lips together. By the end of the day she was closing EVERY time I asked. Each time she did it I said "thank you very much". Keep in mind I still have this nasty cold so I was wearing a mask and could not give her kisses so we made the best of the situation with "thank you". It was kinda funny when she would close her mouth she was not in pain or anything, she just had her mouth open. In fact Dar did not have any pain or pain medication all day. I thought she had been given some while I was doing laundry, I was wrong, she got wisked away to therapy to quick and then I took her outside.

Our little funny about her mouth closing was that when I asked her to close her mouth and put her lips together she would really put them together like she was going to say the letter "P", plus she would have this little grin on her face. Looked like she was just wating for me to give her a kiss, thats what I would do before the cold. It was such a great day. I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I was to see her close her mouth when asked , but to do it all day is fabulous.

Well the fun did not stop there. You remember me telling you that Dr. Doherty had a plan to relieve Dar's wrist and finger pain. Now I can share with you what that was.

Friday Dar started Botox injections in her hand and wrists. If you take the time to do a little research you will find that these injections do great things for stroke patients, cerebal palsey and even migrain headaches.

It takes about 14 days to begin seeing the rewards of the injections but it will allow the therapists to work with her range of motion and give the brain time to rewire itself. We are trying to avoid the brain thinking that a closed turned in hand is not the normal way of things. The injections will relax the muscles and tendons so that the therapists can do their thing.

I am excited to see what will happen when the pain goes away and the brain is not focused on that area as it has been lately.

It still gets better. Dr. Doherty emaild me as we often do and told me that Dar continues to focalize with her eyes and moving her head from left to right more also.

As you can well imagine by now every little thing that Dar does now I am emailing Dr. Doherty, Well, I am not through yet. After Dar got put back to bed about 2:00 in the afternoon, (they had to come find us), she got her first bit of pain medication. Had some blood work done and hooked back up to her dinner.

Adrianna and Grizelda, (sisters) washed Dar's hair while she was still in her chair and Sue from the salon is going to take a bunch of beauty products to the girls on Monday. Sue has been such a sweetheart, she cares a great deal. Thank you Sue.

Well, I decided to see if I could get Dar to follow a different command. I asked her to open her mouth and say "awh" Guess what, she did it. Next I asked her to close her mouth and put her lips together, guess what she did it,. I asked her to do this 3 times and she did it all three times. I got so excited that I ran out in the hall and got our neighbor John"s mom to come to the room so I could have a witness. John's mom came over and Dar repeated the drill 3 more times. Each time ending with her lips together and a little smirk on her face. It was sooooooo totally awesome. Yesterday was such a great day. I hope you can feel as excited to read this as I was to be a part of it.

Oh, and by the way, I emailed Dr. Doherty right away, you think. :)

I decided that knowing it was going to be a nasty rain day on Sunday and I have this nasty cold, I did not want to push my luck giving Dar a cold. I left to come home late Saturday and pay the bills, do wash at home, give Maverick a bath, and keep things up on the home front. We got home late and I actually slept till 6:45 this morning. Since then Mav and I have been busy taking care of business.

I called the hospital a few minutes ago and Dar was doing fine and resting.

I have been thinking about emailing Dr. D and asking her if it might not be a good thing to have me come down once during the week on therapy day to work with Dar also. It seems that I get her to do more things on a regular basis than some of the therapists.

Might be a good thing, sepecially in the next couple of weeks.

Well readers, I hope I have put a smile on your face "cuz" you could not wipe mine off. YESTERDAY WAS A GREAT DAY, did you hear that, YESTERDAY WAS A GREAT DAY.

Talk to you all soon, God bless you all, we love ya

Dar/Danny/Mav