December 15, 2005 - Mid-Day

We thought we'd share some stories kindly sent in by some of Mandy's Dallas visitors.

The following is an excerpt from Jen & Eric: "We visited with Mandy and Kurt on Tuesday evening. Eric created a CD consisting of some easy listening songs especially for Mandy. When "If You Could Read my Mind" by Gordon Lightfoot played, Mandy hummed to the tune. She told Eric she liked "Sailing" by Christopher Cross. We were able to share the news that we are expecting our first baby with Amanda in last Friday's visit. During Tuesday's visit when I showed Amanda my pregnant tummy she asked 'How big is the baby?' We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and are ecstatic about the progress we've seen in Mandy within the past 4 days."

The following is an excerpt from Martha Lee: "Just wanted to let you know how Amanda’s morning was. She has been doing remarkably well in the mornings. This morning we had bananas and a liquid substance ( I am told it is like ensure) for breakfast feed directly into her belly and just right after her bananas she burped, kind of loud, and said “oh excuse me”. The past couple of mornings when I have had the opportunity to be with her, she is always talking about work. Some project or contracts that had to be done.

Then we went downstairs to the 2nd floor for her morning physical therapy sessions where I watched and got to play along with Patty, the Occupational Therapist. Today Patty brought this yellow beach ball with a smiley face on it and wanted Amanda to hold her arms out and catch the ball. She was not ready to do that yet as she was very tired from the night before. From what I understand, Amanda has not been sleeping through the nights very well.

After throwing the ball at Amanda 3 times, and Amanda just not responding; her eyes were about shut ready to go to sleep, Patty threw the ball to me and said “Watch Martha she will catch the ball. Can you catch the ball?” Patty threw the ball to me, but Amanda was still tired with her eyes just about shut and she didn’t respond.

Then I said, while throwing the ball back “See Mandy, it’s a Beach Ball, not a Volley Ball. You can do it!”

Amanda turned her head, opened her eyes, looked straight at me and said “Don’t make fun of me.”

I said “Of course not, sweetie.”

Then Patty threw the ball again and this time, she tried to catch the ball. Then we went to an arm pedal machine and she operated that machine very well. After her upper body workout with Patty she had to go to Group Therapy and I know that she would rather have been sleeping."