Day 84 - Aug 23, 2008

Something amazing happened today. While we were in the chair and out in the hallway, I called my nephew Anthony, who is very close to Kevin. I was talking to him about him bringing my car to Tampa in Sept and I told Kevin who I was talking to and then I put Anthony on speakerphone and went to get close to Kevin's ear. Well...my dear son literally grabbed the phone out of my hand and put it up to his ear like he was on the phone himself. He listened to every word Anthony said and then he handed it back to me and he next "talked" to my mom, my dad and my sister, Kim - all individually. He was on the phone about 10-15 minutues. He even switched ears and listened on the other side (but not for long, leaving me still wondering if he can hear on that side). So while my sister was on the phone he somehow hit a button and dialed my voicemail. Once the operator told me to put my password in, Kevin put the phone in his lap and flipped it shut to hang it up. He had to have known that that was my voicemail and he had no desire to listen to the operator. I was flippin' amazed! I can honestly tell you that when he grabbed that phone and put it to his ear, I just stared at Pam in shock (the puddle jumping physical therapist) and she just stared at me and then we both got tears in our eyes. It was so wonderfully amazing!

So, on occasion I believe that Kevin is in there. I do. I read your comment Jan, and I do feel that he is aware and does seem to know things at times. It's just that those moments are so few and far between. It's hard seeing him content to sit and stare at the ceiling for hours and hours without even moving. Those are the times when I feel hopeless. When I wonder exactly how much brain damage he truly has.

But tonight, I felt hopeful again. Enough to try to go buy a Nintendo Wii. I know that he can do things with one hand using that system so I figured that might be something that he could just do. Who woulda guessed that you still can't find those darn things! I remember one of my coworkers (Hi Deb!) trying to buy one at Christmas time and they were nowhere to be found. And it's now August! When will these system manufacturers ever learn the concept of supply and demand? That's just nuts!

As to the anonymous poster about the speech therapist...I did ask to see one the other day, but no one has come to me yet. If I don't hear of our acceptance and departure on Monday, I will start 'screaming'. I know Kevin is at least a 9 on the Glasgow Scale so it would stand to reason that we could do this. Unless they are waiting to remove his trach? It could have been removed about 5 weeks ago, but they want to leave it in for his flight to Tampa (just in case). In the interim, I will keep that number just in case. Thanks for the info!

Off to bed for me...Goodnight all!