Friday, December 14th, 2007

David got ‘stretched’ by Se for PT, and then Georgette grabbed him and Patty for OT. She had David sit on a mat with a large 4'by 3' easle in front of him. On the first card, David was to match body part names (listed in a column on the right) with a pictures of a person (in a column on the left) by drawing a line to connect the two. He couldn’t draw the line from the right column to the left, and would always stop in the middle. Since he has left sided neglect he just couldn’t work past that part. Next, came a large maze that was 3'x4'. He started in the top left hand corner, went across and down on the right side. After the top row, he could not go cross his midline from the right to the left. He realized that he wasn't doing it right, and said, "I failed didn't I?" Patty explained to him that he didn't "fail," but that was part of the left-sided weakness that we would want to work on. He explained that he could see the left side of the chart, he just couldn’t physically move past the center. Georgette said she would refer David to a vision specialist. Later that afternoon, she came in to say that she had talked to the dr. and the specialist would be evaluating him. We so appreciate their efforts to help David so quickly.

I, meanwhile, drove to ‘In N Out’ to buy a vanilla shake for David’s huge birthday bash. Patty made a cake last night, white with chocolate frosting, per David’s instructions. Last night Patty also decorated David’s room with lame looking party stuff, so that it felt like a five year old was about to celebrate his birthday. But what are you going to do in the hospital? It is just good that David has a mom, because if it was left up to me, I guarantee you, things would look even dumber.

Bruce (speech) came at noon and we lit one of the 21 candles (even that one had to be kept ‘under the radar’) sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and David ate cake and sipped his shake through the straw. He would alternately say to Bruce, “cake”, “shake”,
“chocolate frosting” and Bruce would hold out whatever David asked for, until David said “beer” and Bruce checked the pockets of his lab coat and slowly shook his head! I just love that his sense of humor is back too!

David opened some presents, and then started to fall asleep. At five, he was still sleeping. Six o'clock came with a phone call from his grandpa and grandma Moriarity. We held the phone up, but he fell in and out of sleep. Laura called shortly afterwards, and he tried talking some, but seemed tired. Finally, he said he wanted it quiet, and for us to leave. So we did! Before we left him for the night I asked him how his 21st Birthday was and he said, “it was a good day.”
And it was. :-)

Steve (and Patty some!)