August 14th

Hello everyone!
It's been two weeks with dad home.  Lisa, mom and I have a our routines down. I'm there early in the morning because I live so close, mom makes sure he's fed, comfortable and takes his medications and Lisa comes in the afternoon. We have an in home care giver that comes at 9 AM, leaves at 12 noon then returns at 4 PM and leaves at 7 PM. Physical and occupational therapy come Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays while speech therapy comes on Wed and Fridays. Dad has really made some great progress. His muscles are gaining strength which is allowing us to transfer him from bed to chair easier. He thinks he can transfer himself without any assistance and tries. We now have to keep a loose strap on him while sitting in a chair because he tries to get up when we're not around. The other day I found him trying to get out of bed. He had both of his legs dangling off the edge of the bed when I asked him what he was doing. He replied, "I have to get up because I have a meeting at 4:00 PM". It was 9:30 in the morning and he had just awakened from a little nap. He tends to dream quite a bit, especially in the mornings, because he usually talks about strange, weird and funny things once he wakes up.  These are good signs that his mind is working properly and his brain is being stimulated.  He told me the other day that we were going to be late and not going to make it. I asked him, make it where? He said we weren't going to make it to the airport. I asked him, where are we going? He said we were going to a football game. I had to let him know that football season hadn't started yet and that he was dreaming.  He was a little bummed out because he could have sworn he saw the Wildcats playing on TV.
Today Randy and Ryan were able to get dad in his SUV for a ride around the U of A. It's funny because, we kept telling him we would give him a ride as soon as he felt he could transfer okay and was ready for the trip and he said he was ready. When they got to about St. Mary's and I-10, he fell asleep. As soon as they arrived to see the new scoreboard on 6th, they woke him up. He took a look at it and said, "ah huh", then fell back to sleep. Tomorrow, I'm going to ask him if he remembered the trip.  He probably won't but that's okay because we're stimulating his mind. As I wrote a while back, I can't wait for the day we can have a big party for everyone to come say hello. I'm sure he misses all of you.  It's just a matter of time.