Birthday Wishes

Today Jennie celebrated her 22nd birthday. Not exactly where she would have chosen I'm sure, but we are glad to have her alive and with us to celebrate the milestones that she has made in the last 6 weeks (as of today). During occupational therapy today, Jennie opened and closed her left hand well on command and made a very good attempt with her right hand. Her left arm is the one that is broken and in a brace...we learned that the break is significant enough to keep the brace on for another 6 weeks. That's a bummer but she is planned to get her neck brace removed on Monday! That will certainly be a relief and hopefully allow her a little more freedom with her neck and head. During speech therapy, we were educated about a coma recovery scale that rates how Jennie is progressing. She will receive this test once a week to monitor her progress and be scored on various areas. She also was given some ice chips to see how well she can swallow. She is definitely swallowing some but not quite consistently yet...and it's hard to tell with the neck brace on. So we had to hold off on that birthday chocolate pudding but hope to have more to come on that next week! During physical therapy, she was put in a swing-like contraption that allowed her to walk while relieving some of her weight. This was a fun time going across the gym with Jennie doing well to alternate her steps with some assistance. We also learned that she is officially in what is considered a "minimally conscience state." This is up from first off being in a coma which lasted about 2 weeks to then being in a persistant vegetative state to now in a lessened consience state. We are making progress people! This was explained as sort of like the time when you are about to wake up so you kinda hear what is going on but aren't quite sure of your surroundings - a dreamlike state. She is definitely trying to vocalize as well...tonight she made a very muffled yell a few times. Again, it is so hard seeing her be frustrated and emotional but we know that this is along the road to recovery. Please continue to pray for strength for Jennie and also for my mom. This is very hard on our family but we are Jennie's strongest cheerleaders and have no intentions of giving up hope anytime soon. Thank you for all the birthday wishes.