December 16, 2005 - Mid-Morning

The latest on Amanda's progress from Dacia:

"I had a brief visit with Amanda before I went to work this morning. TAnn was there also and told me that earlier in the morning Mandy said TAnn’s name. She was very alert and active this morning and was talking a lot. A couple of times she would even talk with her mouth full of food.

Mandy’s breakfast this morning consisted of pureed scrambled eggs, oatmeal and cranberry juice. Since the solid food at this point is more to get her used to the texture of the food and swallowing, she is still being fed through the feeding tube as well. But at the rate she is going I’m sure that feeding tube will be gone soon. She used a spoon all by herself to eat two bites of the eggs. After that, she wasn’t very interested in feeding herself, but she let TAnn and I feed her. Several times she very daintily wiped her mouth with her napkin.

Mandy had busy hands this morning and was reaching for everything on her tray and kept trying to pull her trach out. For awhile TAnn held her hands while I fed her and at one point Mandy lifted TAnn’s hand up and kissed it. She also told us a couple of times, “this is bulls**t.”

My hair has gotten longer and is cut different than she is used to seeing and she told me, “I like the difference in your hair.” I told her thank you and she responded by saying, “Kurt told me about your hair and he was very disappointed.”

Her speech is still a little difficult to always understand, but her voice is much stronger than it was when she first arrived in Dallas. I am amazed by her progress everytime I see her."