Milestones

Since our visit on Sunday, Rick has had some mini-breakthroughs that I think are worth mentioning. Again, they may not seem like huge things to many of you, but we have seen Rick's progress over the month and a half since the accident and we think these are clear signs of recovery and improvement.

For a while every night when Mary visited, Rick would pack his suitcase because he wanted to go home. After he fell asleep, Mary would un-pack. Then next night they would repeat the same scenario. He would even walk out into the hallway and pull the suitcase behind him and walk around the perimeter of the floor he is on. This week that hasn't happened.

I have mentioned before that since Rick wanted to make phone calls, Mary gave him an old cell phone without a battery to make his imaginary calls with.  He would have many conversations throughout the day on a dead phone. Well yesterday he told her he needed the phone charger because he couldn't get the phone to ring and he tried calling people all day.

There is a cognitive test that Rick has been given by one of his therapists, Mary called it "ABC, 123". I'm not sure what it is, but I know that last week he couldn't do the test at all. This week he performed the test, made three mistakes and when prompted, corrected his own mistakes.


When he was having a conversation about deer hunting, he was asked, "When is deer hunting Rick?"

It's the same time every year, March...No that's not right, it's in November. I think it's the third week in November.