February 16, 2006 - Early Morning

We thought we'd reach way back to 1993 for a picture today - anyone else remember having a perm back then? Of course, Mandy looks as cute as ever.

Her progress has slowed somewhat in the past few weeks. In part, because she's been battling some physical issues (inconsistent sleeping, inconsistent eating and of course that darn foot) and in part because it's the natural progression of TBI (traumatic brain injuries). We have to remember that she suffered a severe injury to the frontal lobe of her brain and is going to have lasting effects from the accident no matter how much therapy she receives. Her therapy is a full-on effort to rehabilitate her to the fullest extent possible, but we can only do as much as she can physically, mentally and emotionally handle. Because so much is still unknown about the brain, we really have no way of knowing how much she will ultimately recover. We hope for the best and believe in her strength and spirit. We have to let her tell us how much she is capable of accomplishing. We know that she is not a statistic or a case study, but a unique woman that has already performed miracles for us. So for now, we focus on her happiness and quality of life and supporting her in getting as much of her life and abilities back as possible.

The princess asked for her make-up this weekend and was able to deftly able to "do her face up". When Brenda called her on Sunday, she was drinking coffee and working on a word search at her house. (She doesn't necessarily do the word searches accurately, but she appears to really enjoy them). She sounded really content and happy. She still has someone with her at all times because her sense of safety is not as accute as we'd like it to be, but she has improved at communicating with us. She lets us know now when she is about to take an action that might require assistance. ("I'm going to go use the bathroom!") Her eyesight was tested at 20/20 recently so we know she's seeing 100% even if that eye still looks a little bit lazy to us. They believe that what she is identifying as pain in her foot is not pain but just general sensation. (It's a mis-coding error in her brain) They are having her put lotion on her foot every day to try and retrain that portion of her brain into reinterpreting those messages correctly. Conversation with her is still a bit jumbled cognitively with misplaced or made-up words, but there is some slow improvement to it overall. We have a conference on February 23 with her medical team to discuss their initial evaluations of her and the long-term treatment plan. Everyone think good thoughts that day!