April 1, 2006 - Late Afternoon

We normally don't update on the weekends, but we had a wonderful happening. Mandy walked up the stairs in her house completely unaided. We knew she had it in her, she just needed to do it in her own time. We suspected that our girl may have been doing some coasting in her PT; but it seems that she's upped the ante on her own. When Brenda spoke with her this afternoon and told Amanda that she'd love to see her up and walking when she comes to see her in 2 weeks, Amanda answered with a resounding,"I'm gonna do it! Count on it!". We're going to hold her to it. :-)

And as long as we're updating, Renee was kind enough to share her past Wednesday with us: "I am the Renee (I didn't realize Mandy knew so many) from college roommate days @ UT in Austin. I've lived in Maine for a little over 10 years now and every time I go home to visit my parents in Denton, I call or email Mandy & Kurt to see if we can hook up for a visit. Inevitably she is getting ready for a trip, on a trip or just returned and unpacking from a trip. We manage to connect every couple of years or so. My last visit was October, she was getting ready for a trip and we weren't able to hook up. But I did get to see her last Monday and I think she is doing great.

When I arrived at CNS, I was introduced to Wayne, her case worker. He said that Mandy was just arriving on the bus. She was one of the last ones to be helped off so he told me to go on the bus and talk to her. She saw me through the window and waved! I really thought she recognized me, but didn't want to set myself up for disappointment. I went on the bus and said hi and introduced myself to her. Later I discovered that wouldn't be necessary as she only missed my name one time. She went to ST and I waited for her in the lunch room. I did go to PT with her and met Sara. They truly do have a love/hate relationship. On the way to the hot/cold buckets of water, Sara did her orientation questions with her, she asked Mandy who I was and Mandy said Renee. She said how do you know her. Mandy said we were roommates in college. When Sara asked where, Mandy didn't hesitate with UT Austin. She wasn't sure where I live now, but that's okay. We proceeded to the desensitizing of the foot. Mandy truly does not like the cold water and Sara is very patient yet forceful with her making her complete all of the tasks at hand. She walked the long hallway (with Sara's assistance) that leads to OT. In OT Mandy blazed through every exercise they presented her and told me when Berlin was away from the table "this is boring" I asked if there was anything they did in there that challenged her and she just shook her head and rolled her eyes. Next was lunch and she ate everything that was given to her and drank plenty of water and juice. Last was ED where she read a story and answered questions about it, did pretty good on that; she did figure out that some of the answers were in other questions further down on the page. She is very observant. She did 3 pages of math problems with very few mistakes. She really likes to read and write, I was amazed at her penmanship - it is perfect, and I didn't see anything misspelled.

Tuesday I met her at the apartment when she got off of the bus. I asked her how she was and she said with a big smile, I'm doing really good today! Her makeup was on and she looked beautiful, she was very gracious when I told her that. She led me into the apartment unlocking and opening the door, introduced me to her RA and got comfortable on the couch. We talked some. I asked her if she remembered her 1st trip to Alaska, she said yes. I asked her who she went with, she said my friend Renee and her dad. I asked her if I was that friend, she turned to look at me and said yes. Shortly after that, Kurt arrived and then Christine. We all visited. I thought we had lost Mandy completely to her word search book, but she would make comments on our conversation from time to time. Multi-tasking at its finest. The 4 of us went grocery shopping (Christine commented on that earlier!). When we returned to the apartment Christine & I helped Kurt put groceries away while he prepared supper. Shortly after Chrisitne left, TAnn arrived with her sister & brother-in-law. Mandy couldn't wait to get into the gift bag they brought for her. I left so they could visit and leave a little room for her roommate Amy.
I spent a couple of hours with her on Wednesday before Kevin & Joyce took her to a doctor's appointment. She had her first day in the pool - didn't like that at all! But Sara kept on her to work that foot. She had an abbreviated OT, lunch and on her way to the doctor. She got herself up into the Suburban and we said bye. That was the tough part. It was great to see in person how good Mandy's doing. I also think Kurt, Christine and TAnn are doing an amazing job taking care of her. She really thrives on the companionship, it is a wonderful thing to know you are loved and she certainly is."