Wednesday morning, April 9 - approx 8:45 AM

Hi! Today was another productive day for Dwight. He swallowed four out of six times on command!! He kept EXCELLENT eye contact with the therapist as well as tracking the spoon the entire 30 minutes. He also held the spoon and put it to his mouth. He had the 'cap' on the trach the entire time and wasn't phased by it at all. He breathes through his nose since the Jackson Trach.(whereas before the Jackson his only means of breathing was through the trach)

His OT/PT combo class went very well. When they had him leaning on his left elbow and went to stretch the right arm over his head he grimmaced The EMG is currently scheduled for 1 pm tomorrow. Please pray it is only a torn rotator cuff ... BUT God KNOWS BEST!!!! He 'high fived' the PT three different times today as well. The substitute OT had him pick colored squares that were placed on pegs ... after she explained how some had one hole and some two and some three and some four and some five he picked them up, examined them and put them back on the pegs. He also was right 80% of the time with picking the color requested as well!!

In his afternoon ST session, they had two squeak toys and she gave one to Dwight and held one. She squeaked hers three times and told Dwight it was his turn ... meaning to squeak his. WELL ... he squeaked it THREE TIMES!!! SOOOOO she randomly did it 1-4 and he did it EXACTLY as many squeaks as she. She did it five squeaks and he hesitated and then just squeaked squeaked squeaked it ... he knew it was a lot and so a lot she got! This was funny!!

We had company from TWR and their two children had colored "Mr. Dwight" some pictures. They held them out to him as they said "Hello Mr. Dwight" He reached out and took Kristy's, looked at it and then without laying it down he reached out and with two different fingers took Drew's picture, looked at it and laid them both in his lap!!!!! This was SO COOL!!!!! Also, while Steve was talking to him, Dwight reached down, untied the bow, untied the knot, loosened the first two row of laces and took his right foot and pulled off his shoe!!!! It was SO methodical and he KNEW what he was doing!!!!!!!!!

One other thing .... Jim Sloan and Nancy Wren ... y'all will be proud!! He was laying down and wide awake so I had read some scripture with him and prayed with him and he was messing with his right hand, the blanket and what not. So I did the 'signing' (language of the deaf) symbol for 'love' ... he wouldn't copy it so I took his left hand, bent his fingers and extended the thumb and other two fingers and held his hand up. I go, "I love you Dwight' ... he proceeded to relax his hand and put it under his blanket. Soooo I did the symbol again and told him 'I love you Dwight' and out from the blanket comes the I LOVE YOU SYMBOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He did it a second time too !!!!! Is this FANTASTIC or what????????????????? Made this ol' mama cry!!!!

Anyway, yes today was definitely a cloud nine high. Sort of balances the ground hog hole day of Saturday. I know there will be other "low" days and the ground hog in his hole will be higher than I will be BUT GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have exclaimed to the PT before that the 'little' things are so BIG to me .... and she very compassionately says, "they're big to ALL of us Joan" ....... May God find us faithful! joan for us 4 1 Cor 2:5 ...."so that 'our' faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the POWER OF GOD".......