January 9, 2006 - Mid-Morning

Sunday was a much better day for Amanda's tummy. She was able to eat all of her breakfast and most of her lunch. She was a still a little sick, but much better on the whole. She even felt well enough to make the marathon of all her walks to date. At Kurt's suggestion, she agreed to walk to the dining hall (a fairly short walk out of the room, around the corner and across the hall). However, she paused at the elevator on the way, ignoring the up elevator, and got on the down elevator. She then navigated her way to the basement and began going through the tunnel. At some point, Kurt realized that Mandy had decided that the "dining room" she wanted to go to was the cafeteria across the street at the hospital that Kurt and Brenda had taken her to a handful of times in the prior week! (We wonder if she had Starbucks on her mind?) She made it down an extremely steep ramp and half way up the other before she tired and needed to sit in the wheelchair. This was her longest walk yet. She's using the walker with a lot of proficiency now and only needs a minimum of assistance balancing. She's quite the woman.

The stress fracture on her vertebrae is no longer visible on the x-rays. We hope that means that she no longer has to use the back brace that she seems to find so annoying. We've got a question into the staff about it. Kurt has also selected her "group" house. The plan is for her to go to CNS (Central Nervous System) in Irving. [They have a very extensive website. If you google CNS Dallas, it will come right up.] After visiting a few places, TAnn, Joyce and Kurt were all 100% in agreement that CNS was the right place for Amanda in terms of a program specifically tailored to her that encouraged family involvement and her physical safety. [And of course, by now, everyone should know that when we're talking about Kurt and Amanda, family means the family we choose as well as the family we're fortunate enough to be born into - everyone that has spent time caring for her or sending her their love and prayers can consider themselves family!] The official date of move is still next week; however, the "transition" session has not yet been scheduled so we're not sure if we're still on track or if it's going to be delayed another week or so. We'll keep everyone posted as to the planned date and whatever the new "visit" program will be when we get closer to that date.