January 11th, 2008

The best birthday I've ever had was today! David walked (with help) to me, gave me a huge hug, laughed at a funny situation (remembering the hug/choke hold he gave Steve after church when Steve passed out in the corridor), showed his sense of humor by refusing to tell me he loved me, and WROTE a card during Speech Therapy (legibly, he WROTE: the date, "Happy Birthday Mom" , "Love, David", and drew some balloons)! This guy is getting funnier every minute. During dinner he was smiling the whole time. He was flirting with the Recreation Therapist and asking her how he could get on her rotation! Then asked someone if she was married..... Of course he said he like Kelli on a much deeper level than that!
Christa, Bella, and Tobey drove up on a whim this afternoon and surprised David. He is much more awake and alive then ever. It is so great to see them all again. I could write a whole other blog on how funny (3 yr. old) Bella is too! Tobey is just starting to walk too. We are looking forward to being outside with David and the kids tomorrow and just hanging out. Again David told Christa that his motivation for improvement is to return to Turkey and his unit. His friends there are constantly coming up in his conversations. He can't wait to talk to you all there!
Paul, the Vision Therapist, showed David how to use a program on the computer to enlarge the text on documents. David manipulated the computer and was able to move around in people's My Space, READ his My Space comments, the Blog guestbook and comments from here, and couldn't seem to get enough. I sat with him until 11 pm and then said we should continue tomorrow.
Earlier, the Neuropsychologist, Dr. Laura Howe, was asking David some intelligence questions this afternoon. David was able to answer analogies, puzzles, mental math problems like, "What is 13x?"! We will find out next week how he scored, but it sounded great to me!
Thanks for your prayers. The mom I told you about yesterday came in crying today that her house had been broken into and everything that could be pawned was stolen. Continue praying for them. Patty

1 comments :

Anonymous said...

Wow! David, it is so good to see the smile on your face again! I can't believe your progress on a Daily basis! You are amazing! God is so good. I asked my email group to pray for the rest of the boys and men in the hospital who aren't doing as well as you are so maybe we will hear of more miracle stories. We will pray for the family who had everything stolen from their home as well. As much as we would like to have you stay in CA, I think it is a good sign that you want to go back to Turkey and serve your country there. You are a true American and I am so proud of you. All you have to do to make the print larger is press Shift (or Ctrl) and roll your mouse up or down. It is so easy! As soon as Doug gets settled in Santa Maria we will be up so see you! Love, Grandma Haldin