Saturday July 11

I had the pleasure of spending the entire morning (starting earlier than I care to mention!) with John today. We started with occupational therapy and it was amazing to see how they work with him. They started by telling him that he would be getting dressed and he was able to help put his clothes on by lifting his legs, arms and rolling as necessary to pull his shirt on. He has been wanting to put his legs over the rail of his bed for several days and he did a great job during each of his therapy sessions. During speech therapy he began taking pills with bottled water and he took 12 pills in a row! These are mostly vitamins and pills which will help him gain strength and the fact that he can swallow them with little effort it a really great thing. Previously, they have been crushing them up and dissolving them into water and administering them through his feeding tube still in his stomach. At some point soon, they hope to remove this tube and all of his medications will be given orally.

John continues to want to touch everything and is so curious about everything around him. I noticed that he is talking so well and really becoming aware of his surroundings. The therapists put him into a wheelchair frequently and so I was pushing him through the halls of his unit and got him near a window and he began to point and try to tell me something. I asked him to speak up and he said, "Basketball goal". At first I had no clue what he was talking about but when I took a hard look outside I realized that there actually was a basketball goal two floors below barely visible peeking out over the roof of the building next to ours. I smiled and was so excited! I asked him what the building next to our was or looked like and he said, "A jail". The truth is that he is exactly right. The hospital near ours does look exactly like what a jail might look like, complete with the razor wire on top! He seems to notice the minutia and it is a refreshing and different perspective than ours. John never forgets to say thank you or please or read and tell peoples names off of their name tags. This was really special today when I asked what his physical therapists name was (Amanda) and it took him a minute. I started to get worried when it took him longer than usual and finally he perfectly pronounced her LAST name which had about 4 z's 2 k's and probably even a "Q"! She was really impressed and told him that almost no one can pronounce her name. Suffice to say that John has been thrown into a very difficult regime and we know that he loves a challenge and a workout and it appears he will be getting both.