Sunday July 5

The top picture is of Holly and Hudd's girlfriend, Tanya and the one below that is Paulette, Hol, and Hudd.

I was blessed to get to spend several hours with John this morning. Holly went to church but she left a bag of photographs and flashcards in the room which she has been using each day with John. I was pretty amazed at his abilities. He didn't miss too many of the questions we asked him. He is able to read, name objects if you point to them, and answer random questions about a variety of things.

One question that a lot of people have asked is what we think about how things might turn out for John in terms of recovery from a long term perspective. There is no person (including physicians) who has the answer to this. We know that so far John has been given the extraordinary opportunity to recover and has been given great care in a nurturing environment which should avail him to the highest level of potential long term recovery. As it turns out the brain is a bit tempramental and extremely unpredictable (go figure!). John has already exceeded the expectations of most medical professionals by leaps and bounds. Some of his nurses who have several days off between shifts and come back are in awe of his progress.

We have noticed, however, that John's ability to piece together the past and even parts of the present from memory is at times difficult for him. An example of this is his ability to recall the date he and Holly were married but not where or how they met although he did say, "Outside", which is true. We aren't sure the meaning of this but are consistently told by physicians and hospital staff that his recovery to this point is nothing short of a miracle. We are hopeful that his ability to attach meaning to objects and dates will improve but we are so appreciative of his movement and progress so far that we are hard pressed to feel anything but gratitude. To hear him say our names or light up with a big smile when we say or do something he finds funny is heart warming beyond words.

A lot of information we had received early on, indicated that sometimes peoples personalities change when they have heart attacks or incur trauma but it is very apparent that John's sense of humor is very much intact and at times he seems bored with the excessive dumb questions we ask! Hopefully he knows that our ignorant questions come from a place of deep love and are in some ways selfish because we waited for what seemed like so long just to get him to look at us, much less talk to us! Again, I know that four weeks does not seem so long but when you are waiting for the little signs of improvement it can seem like an eternity. He seems patient when we ask him to read or answer questions and maybe this is because he seems to know how badly we want him to come back fully from his safe place and we think he knows that it is okay for him to do so. John will continue to be evaluated by neurological experts to validate that he is receiving as much mental, physical and extemporaneous stimulation as he can handle. He is so curious, looking at everything in his room and seeming to wonder what the wires which go to the leads attaching him to the heart monitor go or what the beeping sounds mean. He can read the numbers on the screen of the monitor and we take the time to let him know what everything means and we try to ascertain what he might be focused on and let him know what is going on. We are to the point now that we can simply enjoy being with him. There are less tears and more excitement and we just can't wait to see what John might be up to next!