Today Patti and I did the trek over the Benicia Bridge to see Daniel in Vallejo, just one exit south of Marine World. It was an overcast day, but the sun came out soon after we arrived. When we got there, it took us a while to find Daniel, but with help of his RN, Joseph, we found him in therapy learning to clean his face with a towel. He did a might fine job and was pretty happy to show us again. His therapist told us that she added make-shift grips to his wheel chair’s tires and he was able to wheel himself in from another room down the hall. From my judgment, I’d say it was a good 200 feet from that room. Not bad, Daniel!

We got there just has his physical therapy was ending and his next task was speech therapy. So, we sat in on a session and she filled us in on his progress. He is becoming more cognitive over the past week. He still has problems with dates, saying it was 1976 most of this week but he said it was 2005 yesterday. That’s not correct, but better. H does know the month we’re in.

His awareness is also improving. Once again, h did know who I was. In fact, every time I’ve visited him, he has correctly identified me. He introduced me and Patti to his speech therapist when she asked him who are we were. He said, “This is my wife, Patti, and this is Sven.” He said my name perfect and very clear. I told the therapist my name alone was good therapy and she laughed and agreed.

She told us that Daniel played Black Jack yesterday. This is great as it means he can do math! Though he needed to be prompted to say hit or stay. Another great thing about this is that he didn’t have to be retaught the rules. He knew that the Jack was 10 points and the Ace was worth 1 or 11 points. This is great thing according to his therapist.

After speech, we went to his room and I sat down next to him and asked him some questions that he did pretty well with. I asked him what color is house is and he got it right by saying softly, “Blue.” I followed it with, “Do you live in a one or two story house?” He correctly answered two. Then I asked how many garage doors he had. Again, he answered correctly with two. Then I asked him the tough question: “Who’s room can see my house.” To my astonishment, he said, “Jared’s.”! I was only surprised because his speech therapist told us that he didn’t have that good of a hold of short term memory and being we’ve only lived across the street from him for four years, I didn’t think he’d remember. But he did! I then asked him what poster was in the garage that showed a man with tools on him. He said, “Jesus?” I said, “No, the guy grunts,” and then Daniel said, “My grandpa.” Patti and I laughed and we told him it was Tim the Tool Man and then Daniel smiled back. When Patti asked him the children’s ages, he pretty much nailed them all! So, we were very encouraged by this. He’s also talking more clearly and sounds more like “Daniel” then ever.

On another praise, his left leg was twitching. In fact, before we left, it was twitching a lot. His RN said this is good indicating that his brain realizes there’s “something” down there and that he may be getting sensation back. He may regain feeling in the future!

Daniel’s been wearing mittens that he doesn’t particular care for. When Patti asked the RN about it, he said that he had spoken to Daniel’s doctor and as of yesterday he did not want to remove them. The reason being is that Daniel removed his nose feeding tube so often that the doctor doesn’t want the same happening for his new stomach tube. So, by keeping mittens on him, this hinders Daniel from grabbing the surgically installed tube from his stomach. Once Daniel shows that he is not trying to remove it and the tubes point of entry is better healed, the doctor will consider keeping the mittens off. During our visit, they were off as the RN felt that was fine since someone was there to observe him and prevent him from removing the tube.

So, that was it in a nutshell. Patti was very excited and said every time she sees him, he just gets better and better. This time his head stood up straight the entire visit and he spoke more and more loudly. He seemed more in touch then in past visits and she was just so thankful to the Lord for his progress. We prayed with him before leaving and I could tell he was very happy we did that with him. So please be keeping him in your prayers, too, as they are working!!

Oh ya, don’t forget to check out the new pictures in the digipix section!

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