1/2 Happy New Year!

Hi everyone -

Hope you all enjoyed a safe and happy new year's celebration.  Mom, BJ and Heather spent lots of time with Dad over the last few days.  They were able to take him out for a ride each day, and also attended some of his therapy sessions with him.  HealthPark has been keeping him pretty busy; he's had therapy everyday, and hasn't had a day off.

His speech therapist, Betsy, says Dad has a condition called fluent aphasia.  A definition I found online says its a condition in which speech is well articulated and grammatically correct, but is lacking in content and meaning.  It seems to show up in Dad when he can't find a word.  He may not be able to recall the word "pen" and instead ask for a  "gun".  But its not with everything: apparently he can recall just about every detail of his hot rod!  Betsy described some techniques she's using to help Dad reestablish the connections in his brain so he can better remember the names of things.

Physically, Dad is doing really well.  He's walking all around, sometimes with his walker, sometimes without.  BJ sent me a video of Dad practicing getting out of bed and he appeared to do it with ease, maybe even better than before all this happened.

We haven't been able to have the secret  special guest blogger write a post yet, but I'm still hopeful that we can have him/her join us soon, at least for one post.  In the meantime, Kate will be arriving in Fort Myers tomorrow for a visit with Dad before we all head out on a cruise!  I hope to write one more post before we leave on Sunday.  Dad has a special friend going down to hang out with him while we're gone.  His friend Cherry from Brockton will be flying down on Friday.  She will be visiting Dad everyday and taking care of Sydney so we can all be together on the cruise.  We booked this trip in the fall, expecting that we'd all be able to go, and we have all wrestled with whether or not we should go, or if one of us should stay home.  Once we felt like Dad was in a good place, Mom made a call and Cherry came to our rescue!  Special thanks to her for making it possible for all of us to get away and not worry.  Its been a stressful couple of months and we're all looking forward to some much needed R&R!