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Current Hospital
Craig Hospital New Room 210 West!
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
Today I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with Pat. It was the Halloween celebration at Craig, so I brought many costume choices for Pat. She picked a long blond, sparkly wig and pink boa for her costume. She thought the boa was especially nice. I added a crown with pink rhinestones to complete the Prom Queen ensemble. Pat quite proudly paraded past the nurses station and through the halls as we went for an afternoon stroll. We do have pictures of Pat in her costume, but not on digital, so it will be a few more days.
Earlier in the day, when I first caught up with Pat, she had been in therapy all morning and was in the lunchroom quite expertly eating her lunch. Her friend, Sheri and daughter Mackenzie were also there, so I slipped out for lunch to the cafeteria in the basement so Sheri and Pat could visit, knowing I would get to be with her all afternoon.
When I came back Pat was laying
down for a rest, but wanted to talk. So I sat next to her on her bed and we
talked for nearly an hour. Pat's speech patterns are there, it sounds just
like her as she starts out a sentence, but after the first couple words or
phrase the sentence becomes all jumbled with some recognizable words, some
words that sound much like German, and words that make no sense at all.
But her desire to keep speaking with me never diminished. If she would start to
get frustrated over not being able to communicate I'd tell it was all right,
that the words would come another day. And she would say OK and launch into
another conversation. I told her what was going on in our family and she seemed to understand and chuckle at funny things, like she understood
what I was talking about.
After a bit she was getting tired, so she took a nap, unfortunately while the
costume contest was going on in the lunchroom. After about 40 minutes there
was a knock at the door and her afternoon snack, a chocolate milkshake, had
arrived. As soon as she saw the shake she popped up out of bed and wanted
that shake! She practically got into her wheelchair without any of my
assistance, other than to steady the chair for her. She held the glass with
her right had at first, almost like it was an unconscious thought, but then
switched it to her left hand. I encouraged her to use the right hand, which
she did for a couple more sips, but the shake was too cold to hold and
too frozen to drink easily, so we started looking through the costumes. I
had suggested she might want to be a cowboy, but when Pat saw the pink boa,
it was all over for picking any thing else. She was quite taken with the pink
boa.
We had been strolling the grounds and were content to just hang at the
windows on the walkway, when I saw Larry coming up the sidewalk outside. I
said oh Pat there's Uncle Larry. As soon as she saw him she turned her wheel
chair around and headed back to her room. Larry was in the room when she got
there and he marveled at how special she looked in her costume today.
Pat wheeled in close for a kiss. They were too cute.
Soon it was time for speech therapy where Pat practiced counting and saying
the days of the week. None of these were strong things for her, but the therapist then put three words up on the computer and asked her which
was Aspen. She pointed to it without hesitation. She was asked where she
lives and again she pointed to Frisco right away. They played this game with
a series of three words and Pat got them all right with no hesitation. So
the written word seems to be no problem for Pat at this level.
After therapy it was time for me to head back to Frisco. I got a hug and kiss from Pat, and left with a heart full of love and happiness.
KK
UPDATE FOR SATURDAY 10/30 FROM DEBRA
Debra here. Pat just laid down for a little snooze. A quiet Hawaiian slack key guitar is lulling us both into sweet dreams. She's looking forward to Larry arriving later this afternoon, and I think Pooh Bishop may stop by. Laura left a few minutes ago.
Pat had big smiles when she and Laura told me about the Halloween costume. We played a bit at Boggle, Jr... a game of matching letters on cubes to words printed on a card. I'll looking forward to
more of that later. It's a good one for Pat as she tries to reinforce reading and writing skills.
One of the improvements I'm happy to see is that Pat can eat anything she wants now! Chewing and swallowing are under control. There's nothing like good food to lift the spirits, although that's probably more true for me than Pat.
Tomorrow I expect to be here most of the afternoon. Jorden's thinking he can visit and play with us then too. He and Pat always have good laughs together.
Bye for now! Debra
