4/24 update

Hi all –

Sorry to be so long between updates.  Life has been pretty crazy lately.  I think I’m going to reduce my updates to once a month.  Dad’s made a lot of progress in the last (almost) 6 months, and things are pretty good at this point.  He continues to improve all the time.  I hear he’s been calling people on the phone a lot more.  BJ theorized that he’s starting to feel that he really is improving, and struggles less to find his words, so he’s more confident and is getting back to more normal activities.  He did see a doctor about his shoulder (not stroke related) in the last couple of weeks, and it looks like he will need a shoulder replacement if he wants to have any lasting improvement.  They gave him a cortisone shot and that has helped.  He’s still having PT for that and his hip.  Other than that, he no longer has any therapy appointments.  He supposedly does exercises in the pool, if you can call it that…..

Here’s a nice pic of Dad with Mom and Aunt Jean at a friend’s birthday celebration.  Everyone looks pretty good! 

On a sad note, yesterday BJ and Heather had to say goodbye to their little buddy Sam.  He was a sweet boy, and had been a faithful furry visitor to Mom and Dad’s these past several months.  He's been a member of the Hall family as long as Heather has; she and Sam were a package deal for BJ.  Even as his 16 year old little body was failing, he still had a lot of spunk and was always glad to see everyone.  Of course BJ and Heather are heartbroken and will miss him terribly.  The rest of us will too.  It’s so hard when they have to leave us..... 

That’s all for now.  I’ll shoot for the end of May for the next update unless something major happens.  If you want to know how he’s doing before then, give him a call!

4/9 update

Dad has been a busy guy over the last week or so.  Yesterday, I believe, was his last day of speech therapy.  He's doing well, but needs to keep working on remembering words.  That's the biggest problem at the moment.  Today he went to a doctor about his hip.  His physical therapist was concerned that he may be having an issue, but the good news is it's just a bit of arthritis.  It's been hard to tell exactly what's been going on, because the stroke did affect him on the right side, and he walks with a bit of a limp.  But, the limp was somewhat present before the stroke, so the PT wanted to get it checked out.  The doctor said everything looks good, and wants Dad to continue having PT to keep it loose and moving.  He needs to get better about doing his exercises in between.  Apparently that has not really been happening.

Tomorrow he sees the neurologist again, and on Thursday he will see yet another doctor about his shoulder. The shoulder has been a chronic problem, and is not stroke related.  He's already been seen for it so this is a follow up.  I'm guessing that doctor will also want Dad to continue with some PT to get that joint moving as well.  

I talked to Dad on Sunday morning for the first time in a while.  He hasn't really been interested in talking on the phone much, so I was a little surprised that he actually picked up.  It was a great talk - almost completely normal.  I was really pleased to hear how much better he sounded.  I think part of that was that it was morning rather than afternoon.  He seems to be able to find his words much better in the morning.  I think he's just too tired by the time 3 or 4 o'clock rolls around.  He did get stuck a couple of times.  Every once in a while he gets a word in his head and it pops in where it doesn't belong.  He asked me about church, which was appropriate, but then the word "church" kept coming up when we were talking about different subjects.  And as we were talking about different people, he called most of them Kristen, but would catch himself and know it wasn't right.  I gave him the correct names and he recognized them.

Overall, things seem to be going pretty well.  Dad is anxious to find out when/if he can drive, but he said he may wait until the fall to pursue that matter.  I think we are all relieved at that!  

I don't really have any good pictures of Dad.  Mom took one of him during Easter dinner at Aunt Jean's house, but he looks like he's half asleep.  So, here's one of Mom and Syd waiting for Dad outside his therapy appointment last week :)