living life in the right lane

K: "You're doing awesome Cale!" C: "We're awesome together Kathleen."

Dr. Howe has been out of town and was back today. She asked Cale what he did last night and he said "hockey and we won." WOW!!! He remembered from the night before! I know it should be a no brainer after the exciting event, but it's huge because so far, even with big stuff (well, what's been bigger than Wing's game?! Haha!) he forgets...usually after a couple minutes, but he has been doing better. Over night though...yikes! I had a ton of new things to update her on about all the progress he's made. She was super excited! It would have been one of those moments that she hears it from me but probably would still want to see it for herself, except that Cale did show her! She was excited that he was able to tell her about last night with out any reminders!

Cale was extremely exhausted from last night and had no desire to get out of bed this morning. There was no time for rest though! His first therapy was at 9:30am and he didn't stop until 7:30pm! It was such a busy day for both of us, but he still did great! I was running around the hospital taking care of things during his speech session, but when I got back at the very end of it, Patty said he had a really good session. ST usually wipes Cale out and if he's tired going into it, he struggles quite a bit. It takes so much out of him to think about stuff and come up with answers, but he did awesome!

Today was HT (Hippotherapy) too! I had almost forgotten about it until about 40 minutes before we were supposed to leave one of the therapist mentioned it to me...it doesn't take long to get ready for that so it was fine :) Thank you to everyone that looked into seeing if there was anything available where we're from. I think we might have found a winner...which would be SO nice!

There was no Bingo tonight because there was a big Christmas Craft Fair! Right after Cale's therapy's we headed to the auditorium in the main hospital for some fun :) I know that Christmas is not about the trees, gifts, and goodies, but I really enjoy all of it! Christmas time is special because of the true meaning with celebrating the birth of Jesus and it's fun too! I love decorating and making everything happy and cheerful. I was told today that we're not allowed to have the lights on the tree in Cale's room. I was so disappointed when I was told! Again, I know that it's silly and that's not what Christmas is all about, but having the tree (lit) in his room made being in a hospital room for Christmas, not so hospital like. After my minute of being crushed, I decided that even though I didn't want to spend lots on the tree, I would go to the store and find pretty things to use instead. Tonight at the Craft Fair, they had a table set up for decorating a mini tree! This one was way more fun and a lot prettier too! It's perfect! :) We put the new one in Cale's room and I took the one with lights to my room for a little bit of Christmas comfort in my room. There was also a guy that did the picture at the top for free! Cale thought it was real neat and so did I!





I'm having to learn a new lesson with Cale. Actually, I've been having to learn it, but I think it's going to take a bit to get it in my head. Things with Cale take time-extra time. The average person spends 2 minutes brushing their teeth. For Cale, it takes 15 minutes. The last few days there have been several moments that not by my choice, we've had to do something very quickly. Well, passing steps or rushing along does not fit Cale's abilities right now. On Monday, I needed him to quickly sign a paper and then get changed for PT which was just minutes away. To sign his name, it took him 5 minutes! He needs the time to develop the letter, keep his eyes open, coordinate his right hand to control the pen, and understand what he needs to do. It's so easy for me to forget that his brain needs time (lots of time!) to process each step in a task. I'm learning...! I'm so thankful that he's even able to do all of these things, so being patient isn't too hard ;) It kind of makes me think of driving in the right lane and not being able to get over and pass the slow cars...we'll get there, it just takes time :)

I had mentioned before about the Hopper's (click here) and the CD they had just released. They have a super great idea going for Christmas that I wanted to share too!

http://www.giftsofwater.com/teamhopper/

Please pray for Friday. It's the first round of meetings with Stanford to discuss the mass in Cale's nose. This is not an exciting thing...it's a little scary, but I know that God has brought Cale this far and I will continue to trust. Pray for wisdom and clarity on which direction to take with this. I will update as I know more about it!