Thanksgiving week...

This has been an eventful week for John. He started of the week by being moved to a new "facility". The new place is called Mentis and they work specifically with folks who have brain injuries and/or head trauma. The focus now is to help John regain some more of his life skills and independence.

Since June, John has been to 4 different hospitals and facilities. One of the things that Holly and I both noticed about this move was just how much easier this transition and move was from a logisitical standpoint. When we moved from the hospital to Triumph, it took almost an hour just to disconnect John from all the tubes and wires running into his body and we were so nervous that something would go wrong. Then, in the move from Triumph to TIRR there was huge concern that John wouldn't receive adequate nursing because he was being moved from an acute care setting to one with shared nursing staff.

This recent move was simply a matter of loading John's personal stuff and him into Holly's truck and driving him from TIRR to Mentis. Needless to say, it wasn't lost on us just how far John has come over the past 6 months. There is always trepidation with change because we get comfortable at each place knowing that John is stable but so far we have been very blessed that John has consistently received top-knotch care and we have no reason to believe that this won't continue at Mentis. This is a small facility housing no more than 20 patients and each of them have their own room. Residents are encouraged to help with meal preparation and receive occupational and physical therapy throughout the day. The true focus is to enable residents to be able to live more independently so there is a bit of a pulling back of the constant family presence. While we are still very much involved, John is in the process of regaining who he is as a person and as an individual and he is allowed to do so while under the watchful eye of more objective professionals. This is simply the next step in John's magnificent journey!

On Thanksgiving day, John had a pass to leave Mentis and Holly and he spent the day visiting with family. The above pictures of farm animals are at the FHA barn where John and Holly's niece Sydney is raising a goat...(she named the goat JohnJohn!)