December 22, 2005 - Early Morning

Ron arrived in Dallas yesterday and was able to see Mandy again for the first time in 3 weeks. What a difference those 3 weeks have made! When he had to leave, she was comatose. She was not able to speak, hadn't eaten solid food in nearly 2 months, was confined to her bed, and minimally interactive. Three weeks later, she's a new girl. She still has a long way to go, but she is talking a blue streak (o.k., most of it is still not in the present moment and confused, but talking is still talking), interactive and pretty darn mobile compared to where she has been. She hasn't said his name yet, but is treating him like she recognizes him. [In case we haven't mentioned it yet, she definitely knows Kurt and refers to him as "Kurty" quite often.] She is still a bit "child-like" (although the therapists have warned us against treating her like a child, it's important that we still treat her like an adult). Her attention span is extremely short (she takes a few bites of her meals and then you have to feed her the rest) and she has a minimal ability to focus. When Brenda spoke with her on the phone yesterday, she was very attentive to hearing that Brenda was flying in on Xmas and bringing presents, but lost focus as soon as the subject turned away from gifts! LOL She is slowly working her way back to being our funny girl.

Ron spent the day at Baylor going through her therapies with her. Her physical therapist has asked that her release day to the "group home" be pushed back a week so that she can continue working on walking with the princess. The paralysis in her left leg appears to be improving and she wants more time to work on it. The most exciting news is that her PT told Ron that she believes Amanda will be walking in the next week! (Right now she is still getting a lot of assistance from the PT and the bars). She had a few very lucid moments. As Ron was feeding her her dinner yesterday, she stopped, looked straight and him and said,"You know, you really should heat this up." He checked and she was right, her dinner had gotten a little cold. But the best moment of the day was when she, Kurt and Ron went for a roll around the facility. As Ron was pushing her wheelchair from behind, Kurt was walking beside her, she reached up and grabbed Kurt's hand. And for the remainder of the roll, Kurt and Mandy were "walking" hand in hand. Sometimes, it really is the "small" moments that help you keep the faith in her return to us.

And as a side note, we all want to give a big thank you to all of the folks that have been there at her side each day at Baylor. It's a sincere labor of love that's requiring sacrifice on the part of everyone on the team (she's a handful when completely lucid and healthy, imagine what her "busy" nature is right now!) and the love being given is most appreciated by everyone that loves her. May all of that love be returned to you all tenfold.