Miss California, squirrels, and a sweet prayer request :)

To start off the next day of our "new year"...I have exciting news to announce! Dr. Howe came in this morning to let us know that Cale has officially emerged out of PTA (Post-traumatic amnesia). This is a huge deal!!!! Dr. Howe said it's equivalent to "waking up"...oh goodness! Basically, Cale's at a point that he's going to be able to start laying down more memory. I have already seen a lot more of this in the past week. It's so awesome to see after such a long time, his brain is still healing! After she walked out of the room, I hugged Cale over and over until Patty came in for speech. We've conquered another step! What a way to start the day huh?

When Patty came in to do speech, she asked if we had seen Miss California. At first I almost thought she was joking. After that, I kept asking people to let her know if they saw her again to tell her the Darling's would like to meet her. We did some investigating and found out that she had only gone to the nurses station and then left. Well, even though she had already left our building, she came back to meet us! It was really sweet of her! It just so happened to be on a day that I wore my comfy pants and a t-shirt...always those days someone comes to visit! ;) She asked Cale where he was from and he said Washington. Then she asked if WA or CA was better, and of course he said WA! It was funny to be saying it to her though!


ST was awesome today! Cale was reading, retaining information, processing, and communicating his answer! There's a lot involved in answering just one question. I was blown away by how well he was doing!

After speech and the excitement of Miss CA, it was time for OT. Cale did a lot of upper body stuff. The first arm thing Monica tried was way too easy, so then we tried the Bowflex again and some free weights. It was fun to watch Cale do them. He was counting how many in English and then Spanish! He was doing sets of ten, and when he said seven in spanish he said, "seattle" Haha! It was great :) Someones got Washington on the brain!


This afternoon, we walked to the main hospital and spent the last of our Bingo bucks. A lot of people that are here for long periods, save up and buy something big out of the little store. Instead, we started using ours to go on lunch dates to the cafeteria. We still had some left over, so we were on a hunt for goodies! Yum! On the way there a squirrel ran out in front of us. He stopped and was munching on something. I pointed him out to Cale and asked what it was, Cale said, "It's a cat!" K: "Actually, it's a squirrel" C: "Eh, they look the same!"

For the last couple nights of our prayer time, I say that we should pray for our move, a house, and then I let Cale pick the last thing. Tonight he said, "For God to give us friends."

He's so lonely and always asking about his friends. It's going to be so great getting to WA and being closer to everyone. I know it's going to be so special for him. I feel like an emotional wreck at times...this place has been home the last 7 months, and now we're leaving. It's exciting, I know. It's a good thing, I know. It's closer to home...yep, I still know. No matter how many times I tell myself these things, I still am so sad to leave here. Leave these faces that have been such a special part of this journey. I realized it doesn't help as much as I thought to tell myself that it was the same last time, and things were good here, because I miss the staff from the last hospital and the relationships I made in the area! Thankfully, I survived the last move and it's been a blessing, so that's what I'm holding on to now!

...of course, Cale is ready to leave yesterday!