Current Hospital

Craig Hospital Room 205A

If you want to send cards...etc. the address is

Craig Hospital Patricia Schmidt 3425 South Clarkson St. Englewood, CO 80110
(303)789-8254

E-mail's, cards and notes will all go in Pat's new scrapbook.

We know your love is here. Debra

Mailing List Subscription Information The Aunt Pat Mail List

Hello! Another day of firsts for Aunt Pat. Some of them may be on the website soon. We took short videos today with Warren's camera and sent them on, but they took a long time to send. THey may be too big... I don't know.

Pat's trach was taken out, the nurse said it looked great and should heal FAST.

She ate pureed food for lunch. First she tried the mashed potatoes/gravy and grimaced, yet she tried some more spoonfuls. She tried everything but grimaced at all of them. One by one she rejected each bowl and put them back onto the tray. It will get better soon, but right now it hurts her mouth and a yeast infection in her mouth makes everything duller in taste. Her coordination to hold the spoon and feed herself was very good. Later she viewed with Warren and Pam the video clip of her lunch experience. She watched it with intensity several times, trying to operate the camera herself. (Pat likes tech toys!) They said something about the mashed potatoes and gravy, and she made a point to tell them in a whisper voice that she tried chicken too. This was several hours after lunch so we were pleased with her short term memory and effort to communicate.

She worked with a computer at speech class and it held her interest for a long time. Another tech toy! She made a lot of progress with it in a matter of 10 minutes. Speech is a challenge right now. As Warren put it, her receiver is working great (she understands everything said to her) but her transmitter has some problems. She smiled greatly when the speech therapist tried to get her to talk about some of the things she likes to do: hike, bike, ski, sail...

Pat tires very easily. Her day begins early and we've found she gets the most out of her therapy classes if she has a nap between each one of them, at lunch and mid-afternoon. We've been trying to figure out a way to "schedule" visitors so that she gets the most out of each visit, because she does brighten to see people, but exhausts easily and then can't focus as well for her classes. The visitor schedule will be discussed tomorrow at the meeting with her whole team of docs and therapists and I'll let you know what ideas come forth.

Thanks again for all your PLS. Debra