Wednesday night

I can hardly believe the difference in Matt just since Monday - and I think its all about eating real food again. Monday in PT he took 5 left-foot steps with the standing walker and today it was 80. Donna, his PT, said that she could feel his right hip engage some today, which is the first step in getting that leg to work. He's paying attention to his right hand, still, even though he can't do anything with it yet.

Whenever Matt wants to get in or out of bed we have to call a nurse or therapist to help him and he's been getting really frustrated with that because if they're busy, he ends up waiting 10 or 15 minutes. Then this afternoon we were waiting again and he decided he was going to try it on his own. Luckily I stopped him before he actually got out of the chair, but his therapists decided it was time that I knew how to help him. We did a quick training session and now I can help him whenever he wants. It feels like a big step towards getting better and more independent.

His language is still getting clearer and we've found that whenever we ask simple questions we can usually understand the answers. Its only when he brings up something he wants to talk about that we have no idea what he's saying. He's still getting caught on certain words that he'll use to mean various things. David, his speech therapist, says this is a common step and things will continue to get worked out.