Friday

Greetings. Before I get into Steve's lastest improvements, I just wanted to clarify something. Lately we've had several people asking us when Steve is getting out of the hospital, and if we think it will be soon. Even though he is making vast improvements at a rapid pace, he is going to be on the rehab floor of the hospital for atleast 2 and 1/2 more months. After that things are really up in the air. So, even though he is doing so well, he has a lot more to go. Two days ago Steve started using his voice for the first time. He's able to do this now because the hole where his trach was is almost healed and so are his vocal cords. It's awesome to be able to hear him talk instead of trying to lip read or catch what it is he's whispering. Because his brain is still in the healing process, about half of what he says are just random words or phrases that don't make sense. At this point he's just working out memories and information swirling around in his head and trying to make sense of them through talking about them out loud. He still responds to questions and is more sociable, but it's when nobody is speaking directly to him that he tends to do this random muttering to himself. Of course he continues to be very active, walking on the treadmill and stationary bicycyle now and participating in wheelchair races with his friends down the hall. The eye doctor came by a few days ago and discovered that Steve's field of vision is only 50% in each eye. He thinks this is something that will heal itself, so we pray that when he comes back to check on his eyes next week, they will have started to heal on their own.