Wednesday July 15

The following pictures were taken today and are of the first time John has stood up since June 2, 2009. Seeing him upright today brought tears to my eyes and made me reminisce about the time several weeks ago when we had simply hoped for his eyes to open. Today, John stood again with some assistance and he continues to get stronger by the day. I will tell you that at this point he requires a lot of assistance to do this but his treatment specialists believe that he will regain muscle tone faster because he was in such great shape before his heart attack. I was privileged to be able to photograph him working with his physical therapists Stacey and Lisa and I simply cannot express the level of amazement at what they have been able to accomplish with John so far.






John is also making tremendous strides in other areas such as feeding himself and speech recognition and he continues to seem interested and curious at all times. He has begun the TIRR pattern and even reads the huge write on/wipe off board in the hallway. This board shows each patients name on the left and times at the top and abbreviations of what is going on throughout the day. I was pointing out to John his name and times and it said, "OT" so I asked him if he knew what that meant. He said overtime and I laughed so loud that folks in the hallway were staring at me and John smiled so big. I told him that he was absolutely correct but that in this setting it stands for occupational therapy and he repeated that.

He is able to go outside now and he does not hesitate to tell you where he would like to go. For example, today I pushed him into a room that is near the side entrance and he made it clear that he would like to see the end of the room and where it led. He seems to be consistently interested in his surroundings and at times is distracted because he wants to read about the people who's photographs and stories he sees in the hallways (as mentioned before). He seems to be putting together where he is and why but there are many components which must unite for him in order for him to be able to combine his physical progress with the emotional and mental portions. He is in a great place and we remain anxious and excited to watch his progress.