Day 37, Friday

We hustled today.

After raking in the yard for a little while in the morning, I got Joanie up and moving about 7:40. I made her get her oatmeal for breakfast and then she had to put her dishes away in the dishwasher. She finished up by wiping down the deck using both hands. As always, the goal is to encourage use of the left side. She then showered and got dressed and we left about 5 minutes late to drive down to her doctor appointment at 10:00. She walked into the office using just her cane! Russ H, her internist, was impressed with her progress. He last say her about 3 weeks ago and couldn't believe her speech progress. He had her walk around the examining room and was delighted with that. He's trying a variety of thing to stop her cough, which has been with her for the past month. He's ordered outpatient PT, OT, & ST beginning next Wednesday. Joanie has really connected with her visiting therapists and would like to take them with her to outpatient therapy!

On the way home I could see we weren't going to have time to make lunch so we swooped by Taco Bell drive-through and grabbed a couple of bean burritos. We finished eating and still had dishes on the table when Sandy, the OT, arrived. She also gave Joanie a good workout and left numerous tasks for us to work on. Sandy had very nicely postponed her usual Thursday visit because she already had her other two therapies scheduled.

We finally were able to catch our breath about 2:30 PM. Joanie took a short nap and when Troy returned from some errands we did some housecleaning.

Friday evening was a very relaxing family time as we all tried to stay awake until at least 9:00 PM!

"The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation."
George Santayana