get people to send healing thoughts and prayers to Jessy's husband

N’s neurologist prescribed speech and cognitive therapy again, and for the FIRST TIME, Nick has made so much progress (met or exceeded all goals) that the therapist has requested an additional 4 weeks to work on additional goals.

She told me that Nick is her favorite patient because he is so funny and smart and has such a great vocabulary range. Yesterday, I happened to be around while she was here. Here’s what I heard:

“Nick, what day is today?”

“Wednesday?”

“Yes. Do you know what month we are in?”

and on and on until . . .

“Give me a word that means the same as ‘tired.’”

“Exhausted.”

“Good. Now, a word that means the same as ‘many.’”

“Few.”

“No, I want a word that means the same.”

“Oh. You want a synonym. I gave you an antonym.” (sound of gears grinding in head)

“Yes. A synonym for many.”

“Ummmmm . . . (gears grind a little more). . . buttload.”

The speech therapist cracked up. So did I, back in my office where I was working.

Things are humming along. Yesterday was the third anniversary of his brain aneurysm, and he is still progressing.

My hubby and I watched “27 Dresses” tonight. A pure chick flick with a sentimental ending. Of course, I cry at sentimental endings, and I was wiping tears and laughing at myself to my hubby, who also used to cry at sentimental endings until his brain aneurysm burst and swept a large percentage of his emotional expression away in a tide of blood.

But tonight, when I looked at hubby, I saw a tear trickling from the corner of his eye. Seeing that was a huge, huge moment for me.

“Are you crying at sentimental endings too?” I asked.

He laughed. “Yeah.” And then he said, “I want to sleep with you.”

I kissed him. “I want to sleep with you, too.”

Dang. A tear and a proposition in the same night. That swimming is doing more good than I imagined.

the caregiver says a package has come. It’s an extra pair of swim trunks I have ordered for Nick.

I bring the package in, and Nick says, “Oh, did you go by our other house to pick it up?”

I say, “No, this is our one and only house.”

He looks at me with impatience and says, “I know this is our only house.”

I say, “So you say “house” but you mean somethng else.”

“Yes.”

“Like maybe, ‘post office’?”

“Yes!”

Now, dammit, I have been thinking “confusion” when he says something like that, but what it is is semantic confusion, and he is just starting to be able to articulate it as such.

Post office=building, house=building, therefore, house=post office in his mind. He’s working around the blank vocabulary spots in his mind to find something similar. And he’s pretty close.

I never did tell him that UPS had brought the package. I was so busy jumping up and down and saying, “You are able to tell me that you meant something else when you said ‘our other house.’ That is FANTASTIC!”

He needs some FRIGGING speech therapy, and I don’t mean a week of it like he had last January. I am going to talk to his neuro again when we see him in September. I am going to take notes on things like this. I am sure that speech therapy would help, but they have to give it a chance to work.

On another therapy front, we have worked in the pool from Nick in a life vest at all times to no life vest at all. We started working today on big leg movements from the hip. There is no place other than the pool where he can do movements like that, and his muscles have deteriorated to the point that he cannot point his legs downward in water. We are working on that, one leg at a time.

Also, the dear man has not had anything but bed baths for the last 2 1/2 years. For the last two days, I have bathed him in the pool, working from his hair and beard down to his toes. He loves it.

I just wish summer were longer.

and never move his lower body. Now, I wake up in the morning, and his left leg, especially, has moved. It may have edged over toward the left side of the bed, or maybe the knee has popped up a bit and the weight of his leg is resting slightly on his heel.

Moving a leg used to require concentration and effort. Now, at least for the left leg, it’s becoming spontaneous.

Yay!

N’s caregiver to go to the store for a few things. I did not have to go in to work, and I wanted nothing more than to stay at home and relax with N.

N. said, “Can I go too?”

My first thought was, “Noooo,” because every part of my body ached and I was tired. But I realized Nick had not been out in a while, so I said, “Okay, we can take the van and make it a pilgrimage.”

We got Nick loaded in the van, and as usual we had to park out in no-man’s land because the one van-accessible space was taken.

K. the caregiver took the list and a cart, and I took Nick and a small plastic shopping basket. “We’ll head for the frozen foods while you get the rest of the stuff on the list,” I told K.

I pushed Nick toward the other side of the store. We stopped for some cereal, detoured down the chip aisle, where Nick got three different flvors of kettle-cooked chips. (The poor man is chip-deprived; I never buy them.)

We went to the frozen food aisle, where a Kroger worker in his late thirties or so said, “Hello, Mr. Nick.”

Nick, whose charm has not been diminished one iota by his stroke, said, “Well, hello! How are you?”

“I’m doin’ good. Saw you when you came in the door.”

“Really? I didn’t see you.”

The conversation continued for a bit, with the guy clearly wondering about Nick’s situation. I marveled as Nick’s sentences pared down to match the guy’s own short, clipped sentences and as the g’s dropped off the ends of his words. (Part of the way Nick connects with people, and totally uncalculated.)

“So how have you been doin’?” says the guy for the second time.

“See this wheelchair? She’s been pushin’ me around in it for about a year now.”

So many people have no idea what to say to Nick, but this guy was not at a loss.

“Well, you’re alive.”

“Yep.”

“Roof over your head? Food on the table?”

“Yep.”

“Wife who loves you?”

“I hope so.”

“Well, then, you are blessed.”

“You are right. I am blessed.”

As we rolled on, I asked Nick, “Do you know who that was?”

“Not a clue.”

I really loved seeing Nick in action. Here he is, acting as though he knows the guy, conversing with no apparent sign of memory loss or mental impairment. He’s a wonder.

I am glad we took that trip to the store.

We had sleepover company on Saturday night. They had some delays on the road and did not arrive till very late, maybe 8:00 p.m. We ate dinner and talked until midnight, and I tucked in a very tired hubby.

The next morning, our guests left before he woke up.

Later, when I mentioned the guests to him, he said he had no memory whatsoever of their being there. I was surprised, because usually when we have guests, he will remember the next morning, though it often takes a bit of prompting.

But I figured something out, and it makes sense. If he does something when he is really tired, he is less likely to remember.

On another front, I have written before about his poor orientation to place. So imagine my elation when he said the other day, “We are in Georgia, aren’t we?” When I asked him,
“What is this place we are in?” he said, “It’s our normal place, isn’t it?” I said, “Yes, it’s our house.” So often, he has thought is was a hospital or someone else’s house. Yay for knowing he is home!

and she talked to Nick. As they were talking, I heard him hesitate as he searched for a word. Then he said to S., “You know, it must be this medicine I am taking. I try to think of something, and there’s just a big hole in my mind, just a big area of nothing.”

S. and I discussed it later, and we were both amazed that not only did he know that pieces were missing, but he had tried to come up with a reason—the medicine. Never mind that it’s the stroke and not the meds. I am so impressed!

It’s also interesting that he experiences the memory gaps as holes or areas of nothing, because as I understand it, that’s pretty much what they are. When blood from a ruptured aneurysm rests on brain tissue, the brain tissue atrophies.

Anyway, for him to undertstand that and to be able to express it and try to make sense of it is a huge step.

Hooray for progress!

Of course, there’s still a way to go, and the gaps that are there result in funny conversations sometimes. This morning, he said to me, “Is there a laundry here?” He has had an ongoing problem with place orientation, so I said, “Where?”

“Here in this place” (We were in our house, in the sunroom.)

“Where are we? Look around, does it look familiar?”

“Yes, it’s all familiar.”

“So where are we?”

“Oh, somewhere past Saturn.”

“I’m not so sure of that.” (Picking up a cat from the floor and giving it to him.) “I am pretty sure this is an earthling.”

“Hello, little earthling!” (Taking the cat and beginning to pet it.)

of familiar objects to name. Sometimes he’d get them, sometimes not. His brain’s access to words was limited.

Just now, I heard him discussing the video he is watching (March of the Penguins) with his caregiver. I heard him say, “It’s rich in detail, rich in color, life-affirming.”

Yippeee!

“initiate.” He could not start conversations, ask for what he wanted, and so on.

This week, two things:

When the alarm rang, I hit the snooze to give myself ten more minutes. Nick asked me a question I could not quite hear, and, being sleepy, I tried to ignore him and pretend I was asleep. He was not having it. “Honey?” he said. I answered, happy for his progress, not happy for my sleep.

Today, I was making a list for the grocery store. I asked him, as I always do, if he wanted anything special. He said yes. I asked him what he wanted. The usual course of this conversation is for him to think and think and not come up with anything. Finally, I say, “Want me to surprise you?” and he says yes.

Today, he was right back at me: “Milk and cookies.” Yay!

A little over a year ago, my hubby could not remember his own name.

Today, we heard a familiar song—”Annie’s Song.”

“Nick, who is that artist?” I said.

“John Denver.”

“Wow, you remembered that quickly.”

“Well, his voice is easily recognizable,” said my hubby.

“Yes, he does have a distinctive voice.”

“Had,” my hubby corrected.

“Yes, you are right, had. Do you remember how John Denver died?”

“Plane crash.”

“Commercial flight?”

“No, it was his private aircraft.”

Progress indeed. Yay!