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