September 6, 2017 8:20 pm
Happy Birthday, Mary!! Is there a better way to spend your birthday than sitting in a hospital room? I submit there is not.
ST was Josh's first class today. Instead of those terrible black and white pictures, Allison (the pathologist) printed the pictures in color. It helped! Josh was able to name most of the fruits, but he hasn't yet been able to name watermelon or pear. Then she gave him a number of clues like:
Then he had PT where he did exclusively stretching exercises. It was pretty boring.
His next class was OT. A man who used to be a patient here (Andrew) comes in once a week with his service dog. I think it's more for him than the current patients. But Josh always gives the dogs an appropriate amount of love before sending them on their way. This dog's name is Señor.
Once class started, Josh copied puzzle patterns. He did pretty well with copying the shapes on the paper below the pieces, but he didn't know the colors purple, yellow, or orange. He knew red, and he mostly knew blue.
Paul took Mary out to lunch today for her birthday. We decided to try out a fancy restaurant that is just down the street -- Steakhouse 10. Dinners are pretty expensive there but lunches are very reasonable -- and delicious. Mary's chicken sandwich was good. Paul's steak sandwich was awesome. The french fries were delish. But the best thing was the chocolate cake they gave Mary for her birthday. She enjoyed the surprise and Paul enjoyed the cake. Mmmmm.
Josh had another ST session this afternoon. When we got there, Allison told Mary, "I have to work with Josh alone today, so you can go ahead and just leave him there." Mary thought that was a little weird, but didn't take long figuring out why. Allison spent the 30-minute session having Josh make Mary a birthday card and teaching him to sing "Happy birthday to you." She came with him to Josh's room, where we were, and they sang the Happy Birthday song and Josh handed Mary the card.
It says:
Happy 49th B-Day!
Thanks for being there for me!
I want you to know that being 49th is a great year!
You alway keep being my mom!
Mom, thanks for being my mom!
Love, Josh!
Our guess that he got a lot of help making this card, but we do know the exclamation marks are his signature. He writes exclamation marks after everything now days. It was super thoughtful of Allison to work it into her session today (even though Mary is NOT 49 yet).
Josh had a vision appointment at 3:30. They aren't really worried about his vision right now because there are so many more urgent matters with his eyes to worry about. Plus, there is a lot of injury to the right optic nerve, and since that can take three years to heal, his vision will continue to change as long as those are unstable. The good news is that his sight is improving -- in both eyes.
Later tonight Andrea showed up to surprise us with birthday cake! She brought 5 different flavor options. Mary chose the white chocolate raspberry (probably inspired by Eden) and Paul took the carrot cake. Andi is super nice and spoils us rotten.
Happy Birthday, Mary!! Is there a better way to spend your birthday than sitting in a hospital room? I submit there is not.
ST was Josh's first class today. Instead of those terrible black and white pictures, Allison (the pathologist) printed the pictures in color. It helped! Josh was able to name most of the fruits, but he hasn't yet been able to name watermelon or pear. Then she gave him a number of clues like:
- "It's yellow and sour." He didn't get that one, but he doesn't know the color yellow.
- "It's a berry and it tastes great dipped with chocolate." Even though strawberry is the only berry option available, he didn't get it.
- "It's green on the outside and red on the inside. We eat it at picnics, and you can spit the seeds at your friends."
Then he had PT where he did exclusively stretching exercises. It was pretty boring.
His next class was OT. A man who used to be a patient here (Andrew) comes in once a week with his service dog. I think it's more for him than the current patients. But Josh always gives the dogs an appropriate amount of love before sending them on their way. This dog's name is Señor.
Once class started, Josh copied puzzle patterns. He did pretty well with copying the shapes on the paper below the pieces, but he didn't know the colors purple, yellow, or orange. He knew red, and he mostly knew blue.
Paul took Mary out to lunch today for her birthday. We decided to try out a fancy restaurant that is just down the street -- Steakhouse 10. Dinners are pretty expensive there but lunches are very reasonable -- and delicious. Mary's chicken sandwich was good. Paul's steak sandwich was awesome. The french fries were delish. But the best thing was the chocolate cake they gave Mary for her birthday. She enjoyed the surprise and Paul enjoyed the cake. Mmmmm.
Josh had another ST session this afternoon. When we got there, Allison told Mary, "I have to work with Josh alone today, so you can go ahead and just leave him there." Mary thought that was a little weird, but didn't take long figuring out why. Allison spent the 30-minute session having Josh make Mary a birthday card and teaching him to sing "Happy birthday to you." She came with him to Josh's room, where we were, and they sang the Happy Birthday song and Josh handed Mary the card.
It says:
Happy 49th B-Day!
Thanks for being there for me!
I want you to know that being 49th is a great year!
You alway keep being my mom!
Mom, thanks for being my mom!
Love, Josh!
Our guess that he got a lot of help making this card, but we do know the exclamation marks are his signature. He writes exclamation marks after everything now days. It was super thoughtful of Allison to work it into her session today (even though Mary is NOT 49 yet).
Josh had a vision appointment at 3:30. They aren't really worried about his vision right now because there are so many more urgent matters with his eyes to worry about. Plus, there is a lot of injury to the right optic nerve, and since that can take three years to heal, his vision will continue to change as long as those are unstable. The good news is that his sight is improving -- in both eyes.
Later tonight Andrea showed up to surprise us with birthday cake! She brought 5 different flavor options. Mary chose the white chocolate raspberry (probably inspired by Eden) and Paul took the carrot cake. Andi is super nice and spoils us rotten.
And right before we left tonight, Josh got a surprise delivery. Someone anonymously gave him a minion. (I found out later that it was a family member of one of the patients. I was sworn to secrecy not to tell Josh, which is almost a laughable joke, but not a funny one.)
When I was there, yellow was the only color Joshua got right 100% of the time. I wonder what that means? It's there, somewhere, it just keeps changing places and he can't always find it. Happy Birthday, Sweet Mary. I love you so much. When you were born, we all celebrated. Loo finally had a sister! Love and Kisses
ReplyDeletePS. It's been a long time since I've seen Joshua in glasses. You couldn't keep them on him when he was a kid. I think he'll be more appreciative of them now!
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