Paul's Update - 05/15/06

Dear Friends:

Today was yet another good day. Dad got to Paul's house this morning to find that Bobby had an injury to his eye. Tabby took Bob to the emergency room. I came to relieve her so she could go to work. It turned out that Bobby has a cut on his eye and the doctor gave him some antibiotic cream to put in the eye. He should feel better in a couple of days. Dad asked Paul if he had heard about Bob's eye injury and he nodded "yes". After breakfast Dad put Paul back in bed to relax for a bit. He handed Paul the remote for the bed and Paul reached for it with his right hand. When he realized he couldn't get it, he reached with his left hand. He is trying more and more to use the right hand. He doesn't have any strength in it yet but he is able to move his fingers more. He adjusted the bed so he was comfortable. He even likes to turn on the messaging feature for the bed! He put it on the low setting and then he took a nap with it running. Early this morning when Tabby gave Paul his motion sickness pill, he put it in his mouth and chewed it up (YUK) and then washed it down with water. Later, Dad asked him if he had a headache today and Paul nodded "yes" so Dad went to give him some Tylenol and said "I don't want you to chew this". Paul put it in his mouth and then took a drink and swallowed it ... he didn't chew it!! After lunch Dad gave Paul a snack. He had some Fritos and Paul kept reaching out past the bowl. Dad asked him "how many bowls do you see?" and Paul put up two fingers. Dad asked him (just to make sure he understood) "do you see two bowls?" and Paul nodded "yes". The visiting nurses came by today. When Dad told the nurse about Paul saying he saw two bowls she said that it may be the reason for him having headaches and nausea. He has an ophthalmologist appointment on Friday so maybe we can determine if he is seeing double. The nurse was impressed at how good he looks. When she asked him to take a deep breath so she could listen to his lungs, he took a breath and he did that each time she asked him to! She and Dad were pleasantly surprised that he did that on command each time. Bobby came downstairs later this evening and he was talking to Paul. Paul kept reaching up with his hand to scratch his head. Bobby asked him if he wanted a hairbrush. He got the hairbrush and put it in Paul's hand. At first he tried to put it in his mouth. Bobby said "no, that isn't something to eat ... it is a hairbrush" and put it back down for Paul. The second time he did the same thing. The third time Paul put his brush up to his head ... and actually brushed his hair from the front of his hairline back to his neck!! Tuesday is Paul's appointment with the neurologist to follow-up on the tests that were run at the hospital last week. Tabby wants to wait on giving the motion sickness medicine regularly until the ophthalmologist appointment since his symptoms could be vision related ... she will talk to the neurologist about this when he sees Paul. This is going to be a very busy week for Paul. He sees the neurologist on Tuesday, his foot surgery is Wednesday and the ophthalmologist appointment is Friday.

Have a great day! Lynne & Carl