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