Laughs

My dad and I headed to the hospital to see my mom. When we got there, the nurses had her in her wheelchair. They were working on a problem with her air bed. As they were fixing it, we showed her all of the fun things that we brought from Idaho. My parent's ward were so awesome! They pulled together so many fun gifts, cards and well wishes. It was incredible! My mom loves getting things and she was very excited to see them. She was SO excited to see my dad. She was just so overly joyed to see him. It was great. She almost started to cry before my dad told her that he was not going anywhere else but home with her. She started to read one of the postboards that the RS put together for her with a bunch of messages from ward members. We then asked her if she wanted to open a present. For some reason she didn't want to. We told her that we could wait. My dad and I were also pretty anxious to see what was in them since we had no idea.

She had been sitting in the wheelchair for 45 minutes and was so ready to be back in bed when the nurses were ready. Once she was good and settled, she was all of a sudden ready to open presents. Her first present was from Susan in her ward. Susan is one of her counselors in the RS presidency. My mom had so much fun pulling out the tissue paper and then the presents. She loved them. My mom is also very aware of cards and opening them, reading them and acknowledging who they came from. My mom was very alert tonight so my dad decided to call Susan, so my mom could talk to her. My mom loved that and laughed at things that she said. Her and Susan are great friends. My mom really cares for her. She started to read a letter that Susan had written her. She fell asleep or so I thought. I went to grab the letter from her for tomorrow and my mom woke up laughing as if she was fooling me all along. It was really funny. She opened all of her gifts and greatly appreciated every one. We have all of the wonderful cards and primary pictures to look at tomorrow. She just received so many! The love was fantastic and so overwhelming. We are taping all of the cards, etc on her walls so she can visually see all of the love that others have for her. It has been great. We do however, ask that you keep the messages positive and not related to your personal problems. If you have experienced similar trials related to health, we definately view those as inspiring and love to read them. As family, it definately gives us hope for recovery. Thank you so much Caldwell 6th ward!

We would also like to thank my mom's work for sending her such beautiful flowers. They are great. My brother's friend Blake also sent a beautiful flower arrangement as soon as he had heard about my mom about a week or so ago. Thank you so much! (Please, no more flowers until we get to Boise because we have no idea how much longer we will be here).

My dad also called my aunt so my mom could talk to her. She had my mom laughing as well. My mom was in such a laughing mood tonight and was really trying to be funny. She had us cracking up.

Some of you may think that she is greatly improving. She is but isn't. Reality is that she still can not urinate on her own, she can not speak (all of her sounds are ba, ba, ba). She still can not move her right side. However, she is getting sensation back. She has been feeling pain in her arm and leg. Her arm had horrible bruises from her initial fall and my dad trying to lift her in the hotel. Getting feeling slowly back is such a great thing but slow. She is now weaned from thick water/milk/juices. She is now eating very small amounts of chunkier foods. Her comprehension of items not in context is like a toddler. Brent was with her during therapy today or the other day and the therapist had a hammer, brush, fork and maybe another thing. She was asked to find the object that she would be able to do this motion (the therapist would pretend to eat with a fork), my mom went for the hammer, put it up to her lips and then realized that that may not be right. Things like that. It was really good that she did recognize that she may be wrong but items out of context are hard for her to place/use.

My dad was all about therapy and encouraging her to do things later at night, poor thing. My mom has to wear a brace on her right foot at night. She remembered that she needed it and told us. My dad was exercising her foot and telling her to move it or put rsistance on it. My dad could feel it. What a great sign. He also did the same with her hand. She turned it slowly over and back. Now that was a huge accomplishment. I wish that you could have seen her face trying so hard at what my dad was asking of her. She is so determined and actually is not giving up so easily like she did a couple of weeks ago. It appeared to me that she has realized that she does have something wrong and needs to work super hard. She was trying so hard! We are so proud of her.

Tomorrow I hope to highlight the "40 Things I Needed the Most" from the book The Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. They are incredible and layout exactly some of the things that we needed to know/here/understand. They explain why the medical personnel are doing some of the things that they are doing such as no TV or phone in her room.

I will update with the latest tomorrow, or if I remember anything. As you can see it is almost 1am and I have been up since 6am this morning straight. My body needs sleep...