Saturday, July 5

Yesterday was a relaxed, slowed-down day on the center's holiday schedule. All of the therapists and patients met for the morning in the gym. With their wheelchairs in a large circle, the patients were led in very simple exercises such as lifting first one leg, then the other, ten times. Tommy is still not able to keep up, but each day his brain is plugging in a little more.
One of Tommy's favorite therapists is Brie, the speech therapist, and she is beginning to glimpse his unusual personality. On Wednesday she sat with Tommy and another patient, Berniece, to practice talking with them. "Berniece," she said; "Can you say Eeeee...?" Berniece said, haltingly, "Eeeee." Then she turned to Tom--"Tom, can you say Eeeee...?" No response for a minute and he finally said, slowly, "Eeeeeeease into it." She looked at me with a look of "Huh?" and I just shook my head and smiled. (I was telling Steve about this yesterday, when we had lunch with Tommy, and he said it runs in the family--his daughter LeeAnn, Tommy's granddaughter, has the same offbeat mind.) Back to Brie, though--so she moved on to Ooooo, and when she asked, "Tom, can you say Ooooo...?" there was another long pause, and Tommy finally said, "...shit." This time Brie's jaw dropped.
Last night, after an afternoon of watching the Jaws marathon on tv with Tommy, Steve headed back to Millville to take Jill and the kids to Bethany Beach for the fireworks; but if they got the same huge storm in Bethany Beach that we got up here in Milford, then they--like us--were treated to fireworks of a different order. It was a great display, lasting two hours, with lots of lightning and thunder, which Tommy and I both enjoyed. Later, when one of the nurses noticed me scrunched into the "car bed" alongside Tommy's bed, she told me I hadn't opened it all the way--the high back cushion actually comes down flat when you keep pulling from the bottom, adding a good two feet to its length and making it more like the backseat of a Cadillac than that of a VW--a vast improvement.
I asked Tommy this morning if he feels comfortable here and if he thinks that the people here are helping him. He said yes. Yay.