Welcome Back, Sickie.

Well folks, it looks like I'm going to live!! After being sick for over a week, I am feeling much better and finally got to see Jamie yesterday and today! I am still not 100%, but it looks like this cold won't quite kill me!! It was really interesting to see Jamie after a week and a half of having to stay away, and see what a difference that amount of time can make.  When you see her everyday, it is harder to see the little incremental changes, but after a week - I can absolutely see the changes.  The biggest change to me is that I haven't heard any of the uncontrollable chatter the last two days! That doesn't mean that I can understand everything that Jamie says, but that when she speaks, it is on purpose, and not just a stream of noises that she can't control.  She is still having trouble finding the correct words to speak and stopping extraneous noises after she says a word, but there is a marked improvement in her language skills.  I also noticed that she is doing better at controlling which language she is speaking in.  Last week, she was getting very frustrated because she couldn't necessarily control whether she was speaking in French, Russian or English.  This week, I noticed she is still vacillating between the three, but she is speaking more and more English, and seems to be doing a better job of picking which language to speak.  

Jamie has been doing a GREAT job in PT with her walking! Today she walked all the way to another wing of the hospital and back to her room.  She used a cane and her physical therapists helped guide her and held her other hand.  She did need a few rests along the way (but hey, so did I!) but she did such a great job.  She is responding really well when her therapist asks her to slow down or take smaller steps.  This helps focus Jamie so that she is walking safely, and so that (hopefully) eventually she can be walking on her own without any assistance.  In her second round of PT, we went down to the outdoor courtyard, and she walked around the entire courtyard.  I am not good at distances, so I can't estimate, but it was long. :)

Meals today were 50/50 so far.  She only ate a small muffin at breakfast, but the fun part was that she got to go to the cafeteria.  Her occupational therapist noticed that Jamie didn't eat any of her breakfast, so we took a little field trip to the cafeteria and she picked out a muffin.  She told us very clearly what she didn't want when we gave her options, but she seemed keen on the muffin, so we got it! and she ate the whole thing! We also had a really funny conversation about how the muffin was free because her therapist was with us, which led to a whole conversation about how being at the hospital was great because everything was free.  Then she looked at Ryan and me and said "Well, free for me, but not for you." She's a smart one. 

During lunch, she actually ate almost her entire plate.  However, she didn't really start chowing down until we made a competition out of it.  I would put some food on a fork, and Ryan would put some food on a fork.  Then I would ask Jamie if she wanted my bite or Ryan's bite.  Most of the time she picked mine (because I'm her favorite), but eventually she did start choosing Ryan's, after he guilted her into it.  :)

During speech, her therapist actually had her working with another patient.  She and R. talked about where they were, why they were in the hospital and then worked on asking each other questions about their lives.  This is important because it helps guide Jamie and reteach her normal conversation skills. She did a good job, and was her usual, charming self.

Overall, we had a great day with Jamie.  She did get grumpy at a few points, but was able to carry on with her therapy.  It used to be that if she got grumpy before or during a therapy, it would be really hard for her to rally and carry on.  Today we noticed that she would get her frustration out, but still continue on.  It was really good to see.

Hope you are all well - please keep praying for our girl! I will update you soon on our next round of specific prayer requests. 

love love love, from us.