Tuesday August 12

Over the weekend John received a visitor of the 4 legged variety. Diesel is Hudd and Tanya's new Boxer puppy and he pretty much wowed the staff and especially John. John loved holding him and snuggling with him and Diesel just seemed content to have a comfy place to lay and get lots of petting.

John is back on his usual rigorous therapeutic schedule. There will be some adjustments made to his medications to hopefully allow him to be less tired and also enable him to sleep better at night and also be a bit more comfortable in the interim. This is a tweaking of sorts with prescription medications and metabolic rates which is so specific to each patient. Evenn as he begins to gain weight and participate in more physical activities, John's meds have to be reevaluated often and changed to suit him individually. The eventual hope is that his medications will be limited even more or become unnecessary.

John now knows exactly where he is and why he is there. If you ask him the reason he is in the hospital he knows he had a heart attack and he also aware that he is at TIRR now. There are a few gaps in his recent memory as is to be expected and his physicians assure us that John is right on track, if not far ahead of most patients who have been through similar circumstances. His progress at this point happens in a different way. A couple of months ago, we were waiting for that first word or for him to open his eyes and then we were hopeful he would walk. His accomplishments so far have been incredible and really visible but at this point his progress is more subtle. He will still at times retreat to his "safe place" when he becomes overwhelmed but it is for much shorter periods of time. At this point it is all of the little channels of communication in his brain need to build bridges and walkways and once again become whole. We know this is happening and see slight changes in John's speech, memory and even reasoning abilities. His awareness also improves daily and it is obvious that he is fitting each of the puzzle pieces back together...one at a time. If you think about the way most of us complete a puzzle we start with the edges and most vibrant sections and then fill in the rest and it is apparent that this is exactly what John is doing.