Well I'm on the bus heading to work again, ready to start another week. This
is really working out well, writing the blog entries on the bus while
listening to music or podcasts. I will be able to post much more often
and it makes the bus rides go by quickly also.

On Sunday, Sherry's family had their annual holiday party. We all got
together in the clubhouse at the manufactured home park where we live.
Sherry's sister Michelle and her family made the trip from the Bend area,
Sean's family and Joy and Curtis were there also. We enjoyed a lot of
good food and company. Sherry does not get to see her sister very
often, so she was excited at the opportunity.

Sherry's new assistants Gayle continues to amaze us with her willingness to go the extra mile
to help us out. She is great at working with Sherry on her home
therapy sessions and Sherry gets along with her very well. She made
the comment that Gayle is beginning to feel more like a friend than a
"care provider" That is what I have been looking for all along.

Well, the holiday season is upon us with all that it entails. I hope
that it goes well for all of you and that you experience all of the
joy this time of year offers and only a little of the added stress.
Probably wishful thinking, but that is my hope for everyone.

On the home front, both Chelsea and Brittney have been sick for the last few days. Chelsea stayed home from school on Monday with a pretty bad head cold. Brittney developed "stomach flu" the next day and has been home the last two days with a sore tummy and a 102 degree fever. This is very unusual for them. The girls usually get perfect attendance awards at school. I don't think they have been kept at home due to illness more than two or three times each since they came to us over six years ago. Chelsea is still coughing quite a bit, but has been a trooper. Brittney's fever is much better and I hope she will return to school tomorrow (Thursday.)

We have adopted yet another new member into our family. We have several stray cats who live in the area. Sherry and the girls have taken to feeding them, much to my dismay (as I put the finishing touches on this post at home, I can hear one of them meowing loudly on our front porch, wanting in from the cold. One of the strays is a beautiful, solid black cat that the girls named Midnight. It became pretty obvious that Midnight used to be someones pet. He is very tame and lovable and I finally gave in and let the girls bring him in. He has become Chelsea's "little prince" and is now an indoor/outdoor member of our family. Our other cat, Kali is not sure what to think at this point, but will get used to him in time I think. Midnight and Keesha have had a few little run ins with Keesha getting the worst of it. I think she is now resigned to the new reality and pretty much ignores the interloper. Gayle has a lot of experience with animals and has been very helpful integrating Midnight into our household.

ERIC...I got your phone msg tonight, we will try to call you on Thursday evening (just in case you are reading this:)



Enough for now,

I love my wife......tomorrow we move forward.

Dean

Trying something new :)

It has been forever since my last post. I am trying something new at
this point that I hope will help me post on a more regular basis. A
few months ago I purchased an iPhone (a great piece of technology by
the way) Anyway, the phone has some basic word processing capability.
It just occurred to me that I can use it to write down my thoughts as
I find the time (like on my daily bus rides to and from work every
day) Then when I am done I should be able to email the document to
myself and then post it from home. We will see how this works. I will
write more in the morning on my way to work and post when I am done.

Well I'm on my way to work. Needless to say, much has happened since I
last reported way back in late October. I guess the most important
news is a change in Sherry's caregiver situation. We decided to make
the change after a lot of thought. No need to go into all of the
reasons here, I will just say we needed a fresh boost of enthusiasm
and a new perspective. We are in very good hands. I use the word WE on
purpose here. Sherry's new assistant not only does everything she
needs do for her, she also goes out of her to help the rest of our
family. She considers it just part of her job to make life easier for
us all. She likes to spend time with girls, involving them with
preparing dinners or baking cookies etc. She is still learning our
routine and the way we like everything done but we think she is
wonderful and doing a great job. Most importantly, Sherry has nothing
but great things to say about Gayle.

Sherry continues to see Kelly at the U of O Speech Clinic. They are
working very intensely on Sherry's attention span. She does attention
exercises at the clinic twice a week and the Gayle oversees the home
program. We are going to be measuring "real world" results soon, I will
let you all know how she is doing in the future.

Due to the process of changing assistants Sherry has taken a break
from vision therapy. I am in contact with her vision therapist and hope to have
her begin her sessions again very soon.

Overall, Sherry has handled all of the changes very well. She
continues to want to work hard and we are still seeing progress. I
expect to see more when her vision therapy resumes.

Enough for now......

I love my wife..... Tomorrow we move forward.

Dean



Sent from my iPhone

A Tale of Two Parties

Sherry celebrated her 50th birthday on Friday and Saturday. Two of her old friends, Max and Pat organized a great party for her at the tavern that she used to manage when her and I first met. Sherry partied with family and old friends at Spirits bar in Springfield. I just had a great time watching her as she socialized, laughed, ate and just had a wonderful time. It was fun to watch as she walked around on her own and hugged people, catching up with friends she hadn't seen for a long while. She handled herself so well, I was so proud of her. Being her 50th, she was playfully teased all night long about being "over the hill." She took it all in stride. In all honesty, she is so happy and grateful to even be alive to celebrate a birthday. Her attitude is so incredible. It continues to amaze me.

On Saturday (her actual birthday) we had a more "family" oriented version of her party at Pearl Street Ice Cream Parlour in Eugene. Again, we celebrated with family (kids included this time) and former courthouse co-workers as well. We all had a lot of fun and ate some very good food. Sherry calls this place the "boom, boom place" because they usually bring out a big bass drum and siren to sing happy birthday. Sherry was a bit disappointed that the drum was out of commission for awhile. Other than that, she had a wonderful time and is so thankful for the family and friends that she has. Sherry also received a phone call from Eric which totally made her day. Her birthday would not have been complete without it.

Sherry continues to move forward and is in a period of making good progress in many areas. She is working hard at the U of O Speech Clinic twice a week. She loves working with Kelly, her student therapist. She continues to see Betty for vision therapy every other week and is doing well there also. She is due to begin receiving Medicare benefits in January. We have been told to try to get her approved for more physical and occupational therapy then. Hopefully she will be even busier pretty soon.

I want to thank Max and Pat for getting the party together for Sherry and providing transportation for us. Thanks to Carmen and Brenda from the courthouse for coming on Saturday. Sherry will never forget you guys and will never stop dreaming of getting back to work. As long as I see her improve, I will never put it past her to reach her goal. You never know.

enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Tough day...but good day

Today Sherry began speech therapy at the University of Oregon. It was a tough day, but also a good day. They began by testing Sherry's attention skills, which we have all agreed to be the most important thing to focus on at this time. Like most such tests, it began simply and progressed to more complex tasks. Sherry's student therapist did a wonderful job trying to give Sherry instructions on completing the tasks. Sherry was able to catch on to the very first part of the test with some cues, but really struggled after that. She kept up her usual great attitude however and worked so hard.

I am so proud of her and we both know this is where she needs to be at this time. Not only will she be getting valuable help from the U of O students she works with, but they will be learning a lot from her as well. She will be seen at least two times a week at the clinic and that makes us both happy. A new stage of our journey has begun. We will keep you informed.

Today Sherry sent out some emails. She did it while her assistant Kathleen was taking our dog, Keesha, for a walk. She did it totally on her own. She opened up the email program, clicked on each name, typed in a very short "hi" and clicked "send." She was so proud of herself. Thank you all for replying so fast. I promise she will not overload your inbox anytime soon, but getting short replies from you guys does more for her than you can imagine. I may email you myself as time goes by and ask you to to challenge her a bit more with some simple question. This is in the future though.

enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we MOVE FORWARD,

Dean

Just a short one

Just a short post tonight to let you know how things are going. Sherry's assistant, Kathleen, is halfway through a two and a half week vacation. We have been truly blessed to have come across two very skilled and professional women to take her place. It was really touch and go up until the week before Kathleen was to leave as to what we would do for a replacement. I had attended a couple of classes through a place call Lane Independent Living Association (LILA.) They turned out to be wonderful people who helped us find our two substitutes. Laura and Deborah have been just wonderful. Sherry has been in very capable hands and they have worked hard to make sure she remains busy and challenged. We appreciate them so much and are so thankful. Every night after I get home and they have left for home, Sherry will turn to me and say "she worked my tush off today, and that's what I want." Laura, who works the vast majority of the hours has taken Sherry swimming, walking around our manufactured home park, to a pond near Vally River Center, where they played with the local ducks. This week she is going to take her to her vision therapy session, and to the Tammarack Therapeutic pool where Sherry will try out a class in the pool for people who are dealing with brain injury or trauma of some kind. My hope is that Sherry will really enjoy this and it will replace, to some degree, the physical therapy she no longer gets at Sacred Heart Rehab. I hope she will begin to go every week.

Shortly before Kathleen left, Sherry paid a visit to her old co-workers at the Courthouse. That went very well. It always picks up Sherry's spirits. She wants to get back there in some capacity, so badly. She is confident that someday she will be able. Only time will tell. We plan to make our next visit in October, on the day the courthouse celebrates the birthdays of their staff. They will include Sherry in the celebration as her b-day is the 20th. Sherry is of course, very excited.

The next big thing on the horizon is speech therapy at the U of O. That will begin the second week of October.

One more piece of news. Some of you may begin to receive emails from Sherry soon. We have invested in a special email program for people, again facing some of the same issues as Sherry. It was actually developed by people from the U of O. It is called CogLink and if you want to check it out click the following link. http://www.coglink.com/coglink.html
Also, if you want to be added to Sherry's list, please email me at deanojack13@comcast.net with your email address and if at all possible a photo. Sherry will use photos to click on to enter addresses and then type emails. Do not expect much at the start, maybe just Sherry saying "hi."
But, if she begins to actually send email to people, how cool would that be!

enough for now,

I love my wife.....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

"Still Getting Better"

A long time.....I know. Summer has pretty much blown on by and we are now getting ready for fall and all that it entails. School starting up again (yeah!!) Sherry beginning speech therapy at the U of O, and DUCK FOOTBALL!!!

We have had a good summer, but are ready to move on. We will go to the girls school on Thursday for an ice cream social. The girls will get to pick out their lockers and meet their new teachers. I am hoping that we will all be able to attend.

We will be having Brittney's 12th. birthday party this Saturday. She is looking forward to it and has several friends that she is inviting. We will do the "burger and ping pong" theme that we did for Chelsea last month. I hope to post some pictures on the main site next week.

Sherry has been spending MUCH time playing Zoo Tycoon on the computer. This is a simulation game that she loved to play before she became ill. It is a fairly complicated game and she is doing very well at it. Her ability to use the mouse and find things on the screen is amazing. It is fun to watch her. It would be untrue to say that she can really play the game at this point. But her computer skills are improving everyday. She needs help to do certain things with the game, but she understands more and more each day. She has fun, which is the most important thing of all.

We had an appointment with her Neurologist, Dr. Mundall yesterday. After observing her and asking her many questions he said "Sherry, you are still getting better. You amaze me." This made us both feel great. We ARE still moving forward and we will not stop until we reach Sherry's goal of getting back her independence and eventually getting back to work.

This Saturday is the first Duck home game. GO DUCKS! Hey....it's a team from TEXAS, how tough can it be.

enough for now,

I love my wife...and the Ducks (well....I like them a lot anyway)

We will all move forward,

Dean

Welcome Caleb Lee Jackson

Caleb was born at 7:39 am on Monday, August 13th to Amber and my brother Brian. It is their first child. Weight: 7lbs 10 oz, length: 21 inches...... lots of hair! I am so proud of Brian and Amber and I know that they will be the best parents ever. Sherry has been so excited about the "new baby" She was able to go visit him yesterday. Chelsea and Brittney met their new cousin earlier today. I look at the picture above and I can't help but feel that this little guy will turn out to be someone special. I am biased, of course....but I can see it in his eyes.

I will post more pictures on the website soon.

Click Here to see the official Sacred Heart photo of Caleb (it is VERY CUTE)



enough for now

I love my wife, my brother, my sister in law, my new nephew Caleb,

tomorrow we all move forward,

Uncle Dean

Busy, busy, busy

It has been a very busy few weeks. Friday, August 3 we had a bar-b-cue party for Chelsea's 14th birthday. I think it went pretty well, she had a few friends along with most of our family attending. We had dogs and burgers and a nice cake. It was alot of work, but with Sherry's illness, the neither of the girls have a a quality birthday the last two years. I wanted to make this one at least a little special. Hopefully, Chelsea thought it was a good one...she said she did at least. Early next month we do it all over again for Brittney's 12th.

The week before Sherry had her eval interview with the Speech program at the U of O. We were both very impressed with the professor who will oversee Sherry's treatment. Her area of expertise is speech/language (of course) along with the neurological aspects that I think will prove to be so important for Sherry. The only bad thing is she can't start until the second week of October, but we knew that going in. Hopefully Sacred Heart will continue to see her on a limited basis until we make the change. I was so impressed with the fact that Karen had read our website before we came in. I also asked her if she knew much about Sherry's original diagnosis, Reversible Posterior Leukoenceptholothopy. She told us no, but that after reading our website, she had done some research on it. That made me feel good. We don't expect this change to miraculously change everything, but I really do think this is where Sherry needs to be at this time. I look forward to working with Karen and her students.

On Saturday, Sherry and I spent the night at the same hotel that where we stayed on our wedding night ten years ago. Sherry had a great time even though we were not able to get a room with a hot tub like we did back then. I had reserved one, but when we walked into our room, no hot tub to be found. Apparently, they are refurbishing all of the "spa" rooms and the work had begun a week early. We were supposed to get a phone call to let us know, but we didn't. We enjoyed the evening anyway, Sherry even drank a small glass of champagne. I need to thank my mother for taking the girls for the night and making it possible for us to get away.

Tomorrow I may well become an uncle for the first time. My brother and his wife are expecting their first child, and she will probably be induced tomorrow. Everybody in the family is very excited of course. Maybe I will post a photo of the new arrival if it is okay with the new parents.

Enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Change in plans

We have decided to postpone our wedding vow renewal for a few weeks. There is just too much going on with our anniversary and Chelsea's birthday (not to mention her leaving for camp on Sunday) I will let you all know the new date once we get it all worked out. I hope it will still be in the month of August.

Sherry and I will still stay the night of the the 4th at the Phoenix Inn to celebrate our 10th anniversary. If any of you wish to send a card, I know it would make Sherry very happy. The address is: 850 Franklin Blvd, Eugene OR 97403. You can also give us a call at 541.912.4576 to wish her a happy anniversary. She is so excited about our overnight adventure.

enough for now

i love my wife.....tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Two years today

WOW....it has now been two full years since Sherry was hospitalized. July 26, 2005....everything changed. It has been quite a journey since. Sherry seemed in a funk all day today, I'm not sure she knew why. But when we talked about the anniversary, she realized why. We hugged for a good long time and shared a few tears. I am so glad she is still here, despite the difficulties. I love her so very much and cannot imagine life without her. I have had to grow up in so many ways since her illness. I relied on her way too much, let her do most of the hard work in our family. When the time came for me to step up and take more of the lead I was very ill prepared. I have grown, but I still fall short much of the time.

Next month will mark our tenth wedding anniversary. Sherry wants to stay the night in the same hotel we stayed at on our wedding night. I have made the arrangements so we will be staying at the Phoenix Inn on Saturday August 4. The next day we plan to renew our wedding vows at Allison Park Christian Church. We are keeping it pretty low key, but if anyone out there wants to come, you are welcome. I will post info about the time later.

We had to postpone Sherry's evaluation at the U of O for a few weeks. Sherry was not feeling well on the day of the actual appt. Nothing serious, just a little bug that passed. We are still excited about the possibility of getting involved with the university. Sherry's therapy at Sacred Heart has been cut back again despite her continued progress. She will now only get speech therapy twice a month for 45 minutes. That will not get us where we want to be, so we continue to look at other resources. No matter what we will continue to move forward.

If any of you who read this can contact Sherry, I know she will appreciate it. She misses hearing from her friends at the courthouse for sure. You can call her at 607-0761 or email her at deanojack13@comcast.net. This is a tough time, with the 2 year anniversary and just a short email truly makes her day We will be planning a visit to the courthouse in the next few weeks. I know she is excited about that.

Enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Gearing up for summer

Once again, it has been far too long between posts. Much has been happening as we all have been gearing up for the summer. The girls are both involved in a city parks program that they go to most every day while I am at work. They are signed up to go to a camp sponsored by our church later on in the summer. They will each be gone for an entire week in August. They went last year and really enjoyed it. I am trying to make it a fun summer for the girls (and all of us really) We bought a ping pong table for our carport area, Chelsea has a new bike (a very nice couple from our church had bought Brittney a bike several months ago) and I have some new grilling and meat smoking gear to help out with the summer meals.

Sherry continues to move forward and adding to the list of what I call "small things, on top of small things" that she can do. This morning was actually a big breakthrough. For the first time since returning home, Sherry completely dressed herself. She is also spending more time on the computer, both with therapy software and also trying to play games that she used to play on the computer before she became ill. She still has a ways to go, but she is starting to control the mouse much better and making progress in understanding what she needs to do. Most importantly, she is really enjoying it. Computers have always been such an important part of our lives (we met on the Internet after all) that getting back some of it is very important to her.

Next week is a big week for Sherry. She will be evaluated at the University of Oregon Speech/Language clinic on Friday. She will probably begin therapy there in fall. She is down to only one therapy session per week at Sacred Heart Outpatient Therapy. She sees Kirsten for speech but they have stopped both physical and occupational therapy, at least for now. I guess they will revisit her needs later...maybe. Sherry's insurance (Oregon Medical Plan) stopped paying for therapy long ago and SH has been writing her expense off. We are very grateful for that, but I am still confused as to why they want to end therapy for her when she is still making good progress in all areas. I know she has so much potential, that she is capable of even more and she is willing to work so hard. It is a shame.....but, we will continue on exploring other avenues and therapy options, such as the U of O.

I am working on a list of all the "small things" that Sherry is now able to do. I intend to post it soon along with a reminder of just where she started from. For those of you who know her, I think you will be impressed. She is still my miracle in progress and she is not done yet. It is a long, slow process but we are still heading in the right direction.....FORWARD!

enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward

Dean

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC

Hi Eric! Your mom (and the rest of the family for that matter) want to wish you a happy birthday. We hope you find a way to make this day very special, you deserve it. It was so great to see you when you were home. You are a great dad, brother and son and your mother thinks of you all the time. She would like you to call us as soon as you get the chance. When you do I will make sure that we have all of the current information on how to stay in contact. Maybe we can set up a regualr, weekly time to stay in touch.

Keep up the hard work Eric, it will pay off. I know that it must not seem like it at times, but I know it will.

We love you and miss you.

enough for now......keep moving forward

Dean

Catching up.......

We continue to move forward, gearing up for the summer. Sherry will continue on with speech and vision therapy throughout the summer, but is taking a break from occupational and physical therapy for the a time. She will be re-evaluated later and if more therapy is needed, she will get it. In the mean time, we will make sure that she gets plenty of "therapy." She is spending more time in the pool here at the park where we live. We are going to look into a class at LCC in the fall that is designed for people who face the issues that Sherry faces, so we will keep her busy.

On Thursday we met with Jackie from the Oregon Commision for the Blind. She is an mobility therapist and will be working with Sherry for the forseeable future. She talked to Sherry about the three kinds of canes that visually impaired people often use. Sherry chose to try out the "support" cane. It is much like a regular can, although it does have the red tip to indicate that she is visually impaired. She will use it for support and to "poke and feel" as much as she needs to to better navigate and deal with thresholds such as curbs, steps etc. This is a big step for Sherry. She has been resistant to canes in the past. But I think she sees that they might make her more independant, and that is what she is all about.

Around the house she continues to expand that independence. She is participating more with day to day activities such as washing laundry, vacuuming, dishes etc. He occupational therapist wanted her to start putting shampoo on her hair by herself when taking a shower. She does so now without any trouble. She is beginning do more with preparing some meals although she stills needs assistance with this, but it is coming along. I have said all along that it takes small things piled on small things to get where we want to be. She is still adding to the list of small things she can do again. It just takes time and she has not shown signs of slowing down yet. She still has her goals and she is determined to get there. She is still my miracle in progress and I love and respect her so much. I am so proud of her and how far she has come.


We want to send our love and prayers to Sherry's mother Joy, who was involved in a pretty serious car accident last week. She appears to be alright with the exception of some hearing difficulty. The doctors think that it is the result of the loud noise of the airbag deploying and that it will hopefully resolve itself over some time.

Enough for now,

tomorrow we move forward....i love my wife,

Dean

Transitions

Quite a lot has happened since Eric's visit. One of the more exciting things is that Sherry went swimming. She was able to get into the pool and go into the deep end by herself and tread water. She said it was the one thing that has seemed to "just come back" as it was before she became ill. She is also taking part, off and on, in a water arobics class here at the park that we live in. I think this is going to be so good for her. She will get to work on her body awareness as well as socialize with others.

There are a lot of transitions taking place as well. It looks like Sherry might be accepted into the speech/language program at the University of Oregon in the fall. This will mean she will get the cutting edge of speech therapy. She will probably work with a graduate student under the direct supervison of a well known professor in the area of neurological/speech therapy. We will have an intake interview sometime in July and then hopefully start therapy in the fall. We are very excited about the prospect.

On June 14th we wil see Jackie from the Oregon Commision of the Blind. We will talk to her about ways to become more independent, especially in the area of mobility. Sherry has been somewhat resistant to this, but now we think it is the right time.

This last weekend we got a surprize visit from Sherry's uncle Mike. It has been about a year since we last saw him and his wife, Lucky. They were so good to us while Sherry was ill and in the hospital in Portland. It was great to see them again.

enough for now, not even going to spell check :)

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,.

Dean

Eric and family come to town!

I know, I know....it has been awhile since I last posted. I know, I know...I promised to do better. I will continue to try. No excuses, I just need to be better about this.

Much has taken place since I last posted. The most imortant event was a two week visit by Sherry's youngest son, Eric and his family. They had not seen each other since before Sherry became ill in July of 05. It sure was good to see them all again. For two weeks our house was often full with his two young boys and Sean and Jody's 3 children as well as our own two girls (thats alot for a 1200 sq ft house!) Eric got to go and watch his mom do speech and physical therapy. He saw, first hand just how hard she works and I think he realizes how far she has come.

I know that this is not much of a post and that there is much more to tell about Eric's visit, but I am tired and heading to bed.

More to come.......

enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Tidbits

A few neat things to report tonight. A few days ago we found out that Eric, Sherry's youngest son will be coming for a visit this coming weekend. He will be here for two weeks. Sherry has not seen Eric or his family since she became ill in July of 2005. She is very excited by the news and cannot wait to see him. She is also a liitle apprehensive as well. She knows she is not the same person she was when she last saw Eric. But, she is also proud of the progress she has made and is glad he is seeing her now instead of several months ago, when she was much worse.


This weekend our whole family walked about a mile and half to the little market in our neigborhood. We tried this trip not long after Sherry came home in February of 2006. Sherry was only able to make it about a quarter of the way before sitting down in a wheelchair. This time, no problem, walked all the way, shopped in the store and then walked back home. I was so proud of her. Her stamina and confidence is at an all time high.

She is also making very good progress with getting herself dressed. In the past she has struggled with getting her tops on. Twice in the last three days she has appeared from the bedroom in her nightgown. The first time, a few nights ago, it was on inside out, but tonight it was perfect. It always puts such a huge smile of her face. She knows she is getting better. She still has her down moments, but she is getting better about talking herself through it and getting her mind back on the positive track. She is such an inspiration to me. I love her so much.

Sherry recieved an email from her former supervisor at the courthouse today and it made her day. She had a few tears in her eyes and said "they haven't forgotton me yet have they?" I assured her that she was not forgotton there. We are going to plan another visit there in a week or so. Thank you Carmen :)

Enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

catching up

As I said before, there is more to report. Sherry also had her latest visit with Dr. Mundall, her neurologist last week. It too, went very well. He called her an inspiration and was impressed with Sherry's ability to use her vision. He thinks (and we all know) that she needs to improve her ability to see things accurately in space. Her acuity is good, but there are still significant visual problems. But when we consider where she began, only seeing light and dark, it is truly amazing that she can see and do what she does today. Dr. Mundall made me particularly happy when he agreed with Sherry's therapists that her recovery and improvement should continue.

On the therapy front, Sherry's Occupational Therapist Dawn has begun to teach her how to dress herself. She has been able for months now to put on her underwear and pants pretty much by herself. However, putting on a shirt has been difficult. If I put the shirt over her head for her (a pull over shirt or nightgown) she easily takes care of the rest. But if she has to do it from step one, to figure out which way the garment should face, where the bottom and top are, she often runs into trouble. There have been a few times that she has done it on her own. After shopping the other day we came home and she went into the bedroom and put on her nightgown by herself. It was inside out, but still, she got it on. She was very proud of herself. I think with Dawn's help we will master this soon. When we do, it will be a huge step on her path to independence.

enough for now, check back again on Saturday.

I love my wife...tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Good reports......

Once again I feel the need to apologize for the time in between posts. I am setting myself a goal of posting every other day from now on. The posts will probably be a bit shorter, but I know there are a few people out there who really rely on this, so I will do better.

We recently had an "all team" meeting with Sherry's therapists. The consensus was that she is still making very good progress and that there is no reason to think that it will stop at this time. Her therapists want her to start getting into "community rehab" programs which will hopefully lead to vocational rehabilitation in the future. Sherry will probably get involved in physical "therapy" classes at LCC soon and may begin a speech therapy program at the U of O as soon as we can arrange it. We also want to get the Oregon Commission for the Blind involved for some "transitional" help with getting around more independently. The idea is for Sherry to learn skills that blind people use to navigate the world to use now, hoping she won't need them in the future. I'm afraid we may run into some resistance from Sherry on this. They will probably want her to learn to use a cane, and in the past she has been opposed to the idea. Considering where Sherry has come from, she actually gets around very well. We no longer worry about her moving about the house. She can get in and out of the shower by herself and the tub with assistance. She can navigate in familiar places such as church and even the courthouse with little or no help. But walking outside is still risky. She does not always realize changes in terrain such as curbs or sidewalks. Hopefully the chance to become even more independent sooner will inspire her to give it a chance.

Sherry also had a progress appointment with her opthomologist and the news there was good also. They are also very pleased with her progress. Her visual acuity is much better (better than mine in fact) Her eyes are "working together" much, much better after all these weeks of therapy. She will probably continue vision therapy as a home program with scheduled progress check ups with Dr. Foley's office.

There is more to report and I promise to post again by Wednesday evening.

enough for now,

I love my wife...tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

This is more like it

This weekend we took another large step in the direction of normalcy. Sherry and I spent the night on the coast in Florence. This was our first "overnighter" since she came home in February of 2006 and it felt like old times. It was only our fourth trip out of the Eugene area. On Saturday morning my sister and Jeff picked us up at home and off we went. The weather on the drive over was a bit wet, but once on the coast we lucked out and had pretty nice weather the rest of the time. Once in Florence we ate at Mo's (a little over rated as far as we are concerned.) After that we checked into our rooms at the Riverhouse hotel overlooking the Siuslaw river. It was only a short walk from our room to Florence's "Old Town" section and it's spendy shops. Sherry found a bamboo cutting board that "was just the right size" at Kitchen Klutter, so we bought it. Sherry did a wonderful job of getting around. She still needs some reminders to be aware of her surroundings and of the terrain. Her stamina was great, we walked and shopped for a long time. We bought a stuffed monkey (that we promptly named Florence) for Brittney and a pirate book for Chelsea. After shopping, the four of us decided to have dinner at the Bridgewater Inn. Sherry had a New York steak and I had a crab salad. After dinner and several glasses of wine (me, not Sherry) we went back to our rooms for the night.

The next morning found us shopping again and heading for the Driftwood Shores for a late breakfast. We had a great view of the ocean as we ate and saw a few people trying to fly kites, horses trotting by, and people just generally doing what they do while at the beach. We gave some thought to walking down into the sand ourselves, but the cold and the wind convinced us to wait until next time. Then it was a stop at the local fish market so I could pick up some crab and smoked salmon and then we headed home again.

It's hard for me to describe how great it felt to get away for a night. We used to make these kinds of trips often before Sherry became ill. The fact that Sherry's illness has changed our life dramatically is unavoidable. But this trip was special. More than once I found myself thinking
" this is more like it, this is the life we used to enjoy." Sitting back and knocking down a few a drinks and laughing and joking with my sister and Jeff, it was great.

I need to thank my mother for taking the girls for the night. Also, thank you to Kim and Jeff for taking their weekend and making it so special for us. We love all of you and appreciate you so much. Thank you.

Enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

WE LOVE THE DUCKS ANYWAY!!

It was a pretty uneventful weekend at the Jackson home. Sherry spent alot of time, as she does these days, cleaning and organizing around the house. We cleaned the fridge, shampooed part of the carpets and watched the Ducks lose to Florida in the NCAA tourney. We had made a deal with both Chelsea and Brittney last week that if they had a good week in school they could get their ears pierced this weekend. They came through with flying colors. My sister Kim came and got them on Sunday and took them to VRC to get it done. I honestly thought at least one of them would chicken out, but they both did it. I was so proud of them.

I am taking most of the coming week off and planning to spend some quality time with the girls, taking in a movie, doing some shopping, eating out etc. I am also hoping to hook up with some friends of mine, something I don't get the chance to do as often as I would like. I will also get to go with Sherry to all of her therapy sessions this week. She is doing so well and working so hard. She got a little discouraged this weekend, as she sometimes does. I am looking forward to next weekend when Sherry and I will get away together and go to the coast with my sister and Jeff. This will be our first overnight journey since Sherry came home in February of 2006. I think she is ready.

Well enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward.

Dean

Update

We had a very good weekend. Brittney was baptised on Sunday at our church, a decision that she herself made several months ago. We are very proud of her. My sister and mother and Sherry's mother and step father were in attendance. After services we were off to Pappy's Pizza to celebrate. Sherry walked from the car to the building by herself. She was able to stop for cars to pass and step up onto the curb without assistance. I am really trying to work with her to be aware of where her feet are and to pay attention to the terrain when she is walking. There is still work to do in this area. On the way out she would have fallen off the curb without a reminder that it was there. But she is getting better about this, always telling me that she is "using her eyes."

After pizza we walked over to Winco and did some shopping. On the way out we ran into one of Sherry's former supervisors , Tana. Sherry was very excited to see her once she realized who it was. She told Tana to watch out, that she was coming back to the courthouse for another visit soon.

At home Sherry continues to work very hard with Kathleen on her in-home therapy program. She is always running amuck and organizing things around the house. On most Mondays Sherry and Kathleen drive to Vally River Mall and walk the circuit two times which I guess equals two miles. I am in the process of buying some adaptive computer equipment for Sherry. Soon she will have an oversized keyboard, a bigger monitor (okay, okay...maybe I wanted that also :) and a trackball. I am hoping that with the help of these items and some practice Sherry will be able to write some simple emails soon. So, keep an eye on your in-box, you may be hearing from her in the future!

enough for now,

I love my wife...tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Pool anyone?

What a wonderful weekend it was. On Saturday Sherry worked around the house, cleaning and organizing all day long. I no longer worry when I come into the living room and she is nowhere to be found. She is perfectly capable of going anywhere in the house and poking around any cupboard or closet. She rarely drops anything and needs only occasional help figuring things out. It is a real joy to watch her. She wants so much to be busy and sometimes gets impatient with me if I want to "chill out" at times on the weekend.

There was a special moment on Sunday that put a smile on my face. Usually when we get to church on Sunday morning I help Sherry get out of the car and we walk hand in hand to the front door of the building. Then I lead her to our usual seats in the front row. This Sunday she got out of the car herself and walked to the door unassisted. I got distracted when we got inside and before I knew it she had taken off toward our seats. I just stood back and watched her as she made her way to the front without me, stopping to get hugs and shake hands and socialize. She made it to our seats and sat down without any help at all. I know it doesn't seem like much, but again, it is another little thing to add to the list of things that she can do independently.

After church two of Sherry's old friends came to the house and picked us up and we went to the tavern that Sherry managed when we first met about ten years ago. The girls were on a mission, they were going to take Sherry to play pool for the first time since she became ill in 2005. I was just along for the ride (oh yeah, and a beer or two.) With Sherry's eye issues, playing pool was challenging, as we thought it would be. She did her best and Pat and Max were very patient with her. Sherry had a great time and it was a good first attempt at playing pool again. Like everything else, I would expect Sherry to do even better next time.

It was great weekend.

enough for now

I love my wife..... tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Rolling along

Things continue to roll right along in the Jackson household. Kathleen, Sherry's new assistant, is doing a wonderful job. She has turned out to be as caring and enthusiastic as we thought she would be. She has really taken to the role of in home "therapist" and gives Sherry a good workout on a daily basis. It also turns out that she is a hairdresser and has agreed to cut our hair for a very reasonable fee. Brittney was first up and had her hair cut last week, she looks great.

On Saturday my sister Kim came and picked us all up and took us to Florence for lunch at the Driftwood Shores. The drive over was pretty nasty with much wind and rain and the roads soaked with water. However, when we arrived in town the sun had broken through and provided us a great view of the ocean as we ate our lunch. We are planning an overnight trip there at the end of March. We have not really travelled at all since Sherry came home just about a year ago. We hope to do more of it in the future. It felt good to get out of town for awhile.

Well, enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Good things

Sherry's new assistant started on Monday. We are very excited to welcome Kathleen to Sherry's team. She has several years of care providing experience and is looking forward to playing the role of in home therapist as well. We all feel as if this is a good tme to "kick things up a notch" as far as the therapy work Sherry does at home. Kathleen is very enthuiastic and Sherry feels very comfortable with her, they seem to get along great.

I also wanted to take this time to thank Jody once again for all of her hard work and patience. She constantly went above and beyond the call of duty and did pretty much whatever we needed done. We wish her the best of luck with her new job. Sherry is looking forward to being just a "mother in law" again. I think it is fair to say however, that Sherry and Jody have become much closer during all of this. As Martha Stewert would say..."that's a good thing."

Big things....little things

The last week or so has been a story of big things that will have a huge affect on the way we live our lives and of little things that offer a hint at what may be possible for our future. First, the big news. Jody, our care provider for about one year now has decided to move on to another job that better suits the needs of her and her family. She has done such a good job for us, providing the caring and trust that can maybe only come from a relative. She has gone above and beyond her official job duties and has made life so much easier for us. She has endured the stress that comes with life with Jackson family, always trying to be helpful with her actions and advice. We will miss her and wish her well in her new job.

So, we are now looking for someone special, someone looking for a rewarding challenge as well as a paycheck. We are asking all of you that keep up with this blog and our website to help us find that special person. If any of you out there know of anyone who does care provider work and might be a good fit for our family, please give them the address of our website www.sherrysjourney.com. Ask them to visit and explore the site. Remind them to go back and read the blog from the start, watch the videos (especially the ones of Sherry in therapy), read the "sherrys_journey" page of the website which tells the story of what happened to Sherry. This should give anyone interested some very good insight into what this job will be all about. I have also added a job description page to the site as well. Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Now for the little things. Sherry is making very good progress with getting dressed. She is doing better with the lower extremities but still struggles with putting on her tops. We are putting much more effort into this recently and it is paying off. I have stopped "giving" Sherry her medicine every night. Now she brings out a glass of water to her dresser, puts it down and gets her own medicine. I put her to the test and put three or four bottles of pills in front of her. Two are hers and two are not. She is getting pretty good about picking up a bottle, reading it and figuring out if it hers, or say, Chelsea's. She is good about checking how many pills she needs. She is then able to open the child proof cap and get out the correct number of pills. She probably could have started doing this some time ago, but we get into a rut sometimes of doing things for her when we should not. She is not yet ready to do it totally on her own, but she will be able to in time.

Tonight, a short time after Sherry had gone to bed I looked toward the bedroom door to see the light on. I walked in and she was sitting on the edge of the bed putting lotion on her dry feet. She realized she had a problem, got up turned the light on and found the lotion, took the cap off, put it on her feet, put the cap back on, put the lotion away and eventually went back to bed. Not more than two nights ago she called me to do it all for her. It is a little thing, I know, but it is progress. I truely feel it will be little a thing stacked on top of another little thing, stacked on top of yet another little thing that will evenually get us to where we want to be. We see new "little things" almost every day.

enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Busy days again

Sherry is back at it and busy again. Yesterday she paid a visit to Dona at her tax business. She got to see many people that she has not seen in quite some time and it made her very happy. Then it was off for a visit to her old job at the courthouse. Again, she saw many of her former co-workers. According to Jody, she followed Renee around the courthouse, not needing to be led by the arm as in past visits. She spent a great deal of time this evening telling me what she wanted me to post tonight. It is very important to her that everyone who I just just mentioned know that they are a big part of what keeps her going and moving forward. When she gets down, she thinks of her friends at the courthouse and how she still hopes to return to work there some day. She was in tears as she was telling about how hearing from Eric on the phone and on this blog, visiting with Sean most every Friday lifts her up. She loves seeing "the zoo" when they come over. She wanted me to be sure to once again, thank all of her therapists that are so important to her and Jody as well, who has done so much for her. Our girls also try to help in their own way, although we are struggling a bit in that area at the present time. So, thank you to everyone. Sherry's recovery is a total team effort and there are those of you out there who are helping and probably don't even know it.

Sherry also remains very busy at home, constantly cleaning and rearranging things. She actually has the kitchen and dining room area looking the best it has looked in quite some time. She is just getting around so much better. I am really pushing her a bit more to do little things that we know she can do. Things like putting the mouthwash in a glass by herself, putting lotion on her arms by herself. She is working hard most every morning on getting herself dressed. This has proved to be a tough task, but she is making headway as of late. It has been very difficult for me to watch her struggle with this and get frustrated, so I have tended to do it for her and not let her fight it out with herself. So, she is trying hard to re-learn this skill. When you stop and think about it, getting dressed is one of the most complicated skills we use, it uses all of our motor skills, vision everything. It is hard for Sherry but we know it is a big part of getting better.

All of Sherry's therapists have given very good progress reports in the last week or so. I speech therapy, she continues to work on memory skills and multi-tasking with Kirsten. Betty, her vision therapist has her balancing on a big rubber ball, and doing work on her hands and knees. It wasn't that long ago that we were happy she could just get up and down from her chair without help, so there has been much progress. We still have a ways to go, but Sherry is up to it and I am more confidant than ever she will get to where she wants to be.

Enough for now,

I love my wife.....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

Good weekend

We all had a very good weekend. Sherry really seems to be back on track. She drove everyone crazy (well, sort of anyway) over the last few days with her constant cleaning up of the house. She does her best, but still needs supervision to be safe. So, I would be helping Brittney with her school work and Sherry would get up and head off to the bathroom or something and I would have to stop what I was doing and follow her to make sure she was safe. Most of the weekend I didn't know if I was coming or going. Every now and again, Sherry would sense a little frustration on my part, she would wrap her arms around me and say either " but you got to love me," or "at least I'm here this year to drive you nuts" That of course put a huge smile on my face and we would move on.

We are hoping that the bad weather has finally passed. It played hell with our schedule, making it more difficult to get Sherry to therapy appointments etc. If the weather improves, we are planning on expanding Sherry's therapy opportunities. We would like to get her into a special swimming pool program for people who have suffered strokes. Even though she did not have a stroke, we all think it would still be very beneficial for her. We are also going to start to look for some kind of vocational program, where Sherry would have the chance to work on more job related skills and inter-personal skills. In the mean time, she will continue with her usual therapies and just continue to push forward. As she would say, "it's the only thing allowed."

I also wanted to take a moment and wish our grandson Ethan a very happy birthday. He turned 4 on the January 9th and also to Kelly who had a birthday on the 13th. I apologize for being very late about this. I am now in charge of things like this and I can barely remember my own birthday. Hopefully one day in the future, Sherry will be back in charge and we will be more timely. Thanks you for the response to one of the last posts Eric, it really does make a difference in your mothers life.

enough for now,

I love my wife......tomorrow we move forward...it's the only thing allowed afterall

Dean

Foward again....

Sherry continues to recover from from the UTI and the resulting seizure activity. She has the use of her right arm and hand back and she is back on track with her therapy. I do still notice that she is having a harder time with her language. She struggles to retrieve the right words and often gets them jumbled (sometimes with a humorous result.) I have seen this before, months ago when she had seizures quite often. Her language would improve again over time, I hope this will be the case now as well. I'm sure it will be.

Sherry and I went out to dinner tonight. We have always enjoyed Outback and my mother gave us a gift card for Christmas, so with my sisters help, we used it tonight. Kim took the girls and is keeping them overnight so we could have a nice dinner alone. She also gave us a ride to and from Outback, which was of course a great help. We also ate at Outback on our anniversary in August and spent more in taxi fare back and forth than we did on our meals. So, thank you Kim, we appreciate it very much.

enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Birthdays....

Happy birthday Joy and Curtis!

Just a short post to wish a belated happy birthday to Sherry's step father Curtis and to her mother Joy.

Improvement

Today was a good day, quiet, but good. Sherry continued to show improvement in the use and coordination of her right hand and arm. She was able to use it for several different things such as toileting, eating and drinking etc. It is beginning to look as if the doctor has it right, that this was the result of seizures and would eventually resolve itself with a little time. Sherry says she is not all the way back yet, but feels better about things tonight, as do I. She has one more "day off" before getting back to therapy on Tuesday. Hopefully by then, she will be back to her old self and ready to move forward again.

enough for now,
I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward

Dean

Bump in the road....

Friday Sherry became worse and had Jody and I both pretty worried. Not only was she unable to use her right arm and hand at all, she began to slur her speech and her right hand began to twitch uncontrollably. We got ahold of the neurologist on call at 8 in the morning and he determined that Sherry has probably been experiencing a "flurry of seizure activity" over the last several days. He prescribed an additional anti-seizure medication and ordered blood and urine tests. The urine test later showed that Sherry has a urinary tract infection. We were told that this could actually trigger these seizures. Sherry has not had any seizures for well over three months, maybe longer (at least none that we are aware of). We could not figure out why she was having them now, but it was probably the infection. The doctor wanted Sherry to take a very large dose of the additional meds in a short amount of time. Later, we started her on anti-biotics to combat the infection. She started to show some improvement shortly after starting the new meds. By the time I got home from work, she was no longer slurring her words, and her hand had pretty much stopped twitching. She still cannot really use her right arm and hand, but the doctor said that should come back over the next few days. So, we are guardedly hopeful, just hoping the doctor has this right. He sounded very confident to me over the phone, so we are waiting and watching. Sherry is just taking it very easy this weekend and says she feels like things are getting better.

We have not hit a bump in the road like this for quite some time. If things settle down and she can begin to use her arm and hand again soon, this will have just been a short interruption on her road of recovery. If however, she cannot then this will have become a real setback as we will have to focus her therapy on getting it back. Only time will tell. I will keep you all posted.

Enough for now,

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean

busy times

Just a short post until this weekend when I promise to get everyone totally caught up on life during the holidays. I promised Sherry that I would post tonight and that I would include a picture of her (from the old days) on a motorcycle. That I will do this weekend. But I wanted to let people know that things have gone pretty well over the last few weeks. However, two nights ago we had some kind of "episode" where Sherry again became somewhat disoriented, having trouble navigating around the house and most troubling of all (because it is new) developed difficulty using her right arm and hand. This seems to come and go, sometimes she can do things that she is accustomed to doing and sometimes she cannot. This is frustrating because it has been so long since we have had anything like this happen. Things had been moving along pretty good and this development is a bit of a disappointment. Sherry is dealing with it pretty well, although she is concerned about it as we all are. We saw Dr. Mundall, her neurologist today (a scheduled appt.) and he is not sure what happened. Overall, he is very happy with Sherry's progress but of course is concerned about the latest developments. He wants to just give things a little time and see what happens. Hopefully things will resolve over time, as they always have in the past. I will keep you all posted.

Sherry also had her vision therapy "mid-way" progress appt. today. The news was all very good and I will tell you more about it over the weekend, I promise. I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long, the holidays have been so busy. I know there are a few of you out there who really do check to see how she is doing, I will try to be better about posting a bit more often. As always, I encourage you to make a comment to this post or send Sherry an email at deanojack13@comcast.net and give her some words of encourgement. It is always appreciated, especially when things get a little rough.

Happy new year everyone, enough for now

I love my wife....tomorrow we move forward,

Dean