I can't believe it

Today we took Ada to see her PT. Her nurse was with her while mom and dad were talking with the Nuero Psychologist. It is a crucial time to get everyone together, be on the same page, same schedule, in order to help Ada continue making progress. I am so glad that dad went with us today. The plan is to do fun things with Ada, to make her laugh and learn at the same time.
There are many things that Ada would do with her nurse but not for me. For example, she will pick Cheerio from the cup and eat it herself, but I have to give her Cheerio by hand or she won't eat it. I always tell Ada's nurse that I don't believe it.
And you will never guess what she did today. She got up and walked with the cane. Yes, the cane, with her nurse holding on to her. It is not a typical grandmother's cane, it looks very high tect, with 2 big wheels in the front, 2 small wheels on the back. It let her push and walk with much more control. I did not see it, so I don't believe it. :)
Now we are going to PT every Wednesday. Yeh. Everyone is so excited about Ada's progress.
We also took her to Healthplex to walk on the tract. 8 laps equal to 1 mile. She is able to walk 3 laps now. We still use Guess pass but it would be nice to be able to get her to walk there everyday, especially when it is cold.
So, if you don't have a chance to bid on any preties yet, I will have a couple of round for the Auction later. Anything help

Auction for Ada - Round one

Dear Friends
Thanks everyone who participated in the Auction for Ada last year. After, successfully, auction off have of the donated items, I realized that we paid almost 25% to Ebay. I decided to run the auction myself through my blog www.silastones.blogspot.com. Here is how you can participate.
If you would like to bid on an items, or items, you can send me an email silastones@aol.com, to tell me which item you want to bid on and how much. i will update the highest bid as it come in and will email back to you as well.
There will be a couple of rounds for auction and each will last 2 weeks. I will then contact the person with highest bid to make payment arrangement. A small shipping fee will be added to the final bid as well.
If you have any question, please do not hesitate to email me.
And if you can help spread the word through your friends as well, I would greatly appreciate it.
The Auction will begin on Saturday, September 25th, 2010 at noon and will end on Friday, October 8th, 2010 at noon (Central time).

New feeding tube, new ER

Early this month, Ada' s feeding tube came loose, so we took her to ER. It was not busy and now, instead of putting the temporary tube in her tummy, the can put a new G-tube in there. Ada has G-J tube so we have to take her back later during the week because it was a holiday weekend. The doctor came in to replace the tube and we got out of there in a record setting time; 2 hours.
Later that evening, her new tube came out again, so we went back to ER. This time we met Nurse Ann who is Ada's ER guardian angle. Ann was so happy to see Ada, she doesn't work on the floor but doing administrative work in ER. She get a new tube and pulled a doctor from somewhere to put it in. I knew he was not ER doctor because he was wearing red shirt. Anyway, we got out of there in 45 min. Amazing, isn't it? They also have different size cuffs for the blood pressure machine and it didn't beep that annoying noise. Another thing I noticed was there was a time sheet right in front of each room where the nurse has to sign every half an hour. This way no one would be left unattended for a long period of time. How genius is that? Wonder if Ann has anything to do with this.
Next week, Ada will go back to Therapy, dad and I will go talk to her Neuro Psychologist. We now have a team of therapists and doctors who will come up with a plan to work with Ada. Everyone is so excited to see what Ada can do now.
She continues to make progress, smiles and laughs a lot. Her Speech Pathologist told us it might be time to introduce the sign language to her (and to us).
We take her out as much as we can. It is still warm here but soon it will be Fall. I am gearing up on putting the rest of the donated items on auction. Hope we come up with enough money so we can get membership to the zoo and Healthplex so she have a place to go walk in Winter.

Sunday afternoon

Just a few pictures of Ada enjoying herself in the garden at IMA.

Back off

We went to see Neuro Psychologist at Rehab Clinic a few weeks ago. Everyone there was so excited to see Ada. After a long conversation, I told her that Ada can express more emotion; angry, frustration and fear, and that she always look for me when she get frustrated with something, so I always get the worse of her. Dr. suggested that I "back off" and be her mom and try not to be her therapist. I should try to get out of the house more and let Ada's nurse work with her, which usually works better when I am not around anyway.
My problem is I just can't leave her alone, always thinking that there must be something else that I can do. Since she does not get therapy except with Speech Pathologist once a month, I feel like it is up to me to help her, work with her, but may be I am wrong. In order for me to be able to take care of Ada for a long, long time, we need a break from each other.
It is not as easy as it sound, but I am thinking about moving my work table which in front of her room some where else, so I can be away when I am suppose to be away. May be I can use the room up stair when Archie moves back to Bloomington.
There are a few problems that we have to deal with this past month. First, she doesn't eat that much Cheerios like she used to, so I have to replace it with something else, second, what goes in does not always comes out. Then she has the red eye that we thought from her scratching it but it went away then came back for a day, then went away again. Always something.
Other than that she continues to boss us around and we love it when she does that.

Grant

Grant, I might say, is the only guy friend who still visit Ada. He visits when he comes back to town, from Afghanistan. Grant's mom is a good friend and genius hair dresser, she can cut my hair, (Seriously, it is not an easy task). Ada gives him a big smile and he makes her laugh. Grant got transfer to Japan which will make us sleep better at nite knowing that he is no longer be in the war zone.

Last week, Rachael and I took Ada to the movie theater. We are not sure how long she is going to sit there, so we picked the movie "Toy Story 3". Ada likes the preview, she laughed and smile d up until 3/4 of the movie, when it was kinna sad and not so excited, she pointed to the door. I took her out, walked around then went back in but she was not happy about it, so we went home. Not bad though, she was in there for more than an hour.

Ada starts eating more and more Cheerios, but I still have to give it to her by hand.

Early this morning, I heard Ada laughed, I turn around and she was still sleeping.

Must be a good dream.

Concert at New Augusta North

Mr Staubach wanted to bring his Orchestra to play at our drive way again this year, but it had been raining and storming almost everyday, so I told him that we will bring Ada to school instead.

First, we settled Ada in front of the kids but she signaled us that she did not want to be there, so we moved her to the back. She was smiling and laughing the whole time. After each songs, we applauded, and Ada tapped her right hand to her right leg. This was new and I think she really enjoy the music.

The kids were so good and I am happy for Mr. Staubach that he was able to teach such wonderful group of kids who will play and enjoy music for the rest of their lives. What a job he has! I hope he can continue teaching forever.

Look, Ada is smiling.

This month, however, had been difficult for us, caregivers. Ada had learned to express herself more and more. She is scared, grumpy, moody and angry. Those are good signs. Also the night before I left for Milwaukee, she grabbed a piece of puzzle and swallowed it. She was choking really bad. She was trying to swallowed the purple letter "O"., imagine that ! After that she doesn't eat much. Well, she doesn't eat very much Cheerios as she used to, so we have to give her more formula. She also sleeping or napping a lot. Sleep is good, right?

We also went to see a new doctor who is an expert in Brain Injury, and I have to say I really like her. She asked questions, observed Ada real close and makes a recommendations that we should hold off on PT, OT and let get help from Neuro Psychologist first. May be we be able to help Ada with all of her emotion issues.

Ada is making steady progress, slowly at a snail pace. She is trying to get ahead of us, it is hard to catch up with her. I am exhausted and tried but never lost hope.

How far can she go, or become, we have to wait and see. Please stay with us, I just can't do it by myself. Your friendship and your support had help me to get up every morning.

A visitor

Today I moved Ada's bed out of the way and pulled up her chair next to the window. There is a bird feeder outside and hungry birdies come all day for food. They come early and make so much noise.

Not only birds come, today we have a small visitor. I put a table outside next to her window and plant some flowers. Look at the squirrel peeks through the planter.

He walks around the planter looking for seeds that I dropped on the table earlier. He even peeks through the window. Ada was amused and she was enjoying his company. I left a few nuts near the window. I hope he came back.

We took her downtown today. Walking along the canal then crossed the White River to the Zoo. There are gazillion kids at the zoo. We will go back some other time.

Ada has a few issues this week, she is grumpy and does not sleep well. We took her outside as much as we can. Mom needs to go for a walk too. The drawback is that Ada knows we will put her on wheelchair and push her around so she doesn't need to walk. Still struggle to get her to walk 10 rounds around the house everyday.

Other than that, she is healthy and happy. :)

Mrs. Fox at IMA

Last week when we visit IMA, we saw Mrs. Fox and her pup down from the bridge. Amazing! Today we just learn that she has 4 puppies. But they were mowing the lawn today, so we did not see her.

Here are picture of Ada in front of flowering tree. She and her nurse are my "Look out" while I snipped some of the tiny flowers and put them in my sketch book. I have a project in mind and will use some dried flowers. Each week, there will be new blooms and the garden looks different. Glad that we have such a place near by and can go there everyday.

We also went to see handsome, Dr. Dave' today. Ada was happy and laughed a lot. I'm sure Dr. Dave' was delighted to see how much Ada has improved. he saw her 2 months after the accident and it was not a pretty sight. he recommended us to see another doctor who specializes in Brain Injury. Can't wait to hear what he has to say.

Being outside

We are taking advantage of the nice and warm weather by taking Ada outside everyday. Either a walk around the neighborhood or to the park. Yesterday we went downtown and walked along the canal. We parked under State Museum and walked all the way to 10th St. and back. I wonder if Ada would sit still in the paddle boat. Next time we will walk in different direction across the river and visit the zoo.

Ada continues to make her snail and steady progress. She always in a good mood, laugh and bossing us around. She is getting good at those puzzles.

She seems to sleep and nap a lot more, which is a good thing for the brain to rest and heal. Rachael is still coming every week and Katherine also visits often. Abby is getting married so she must be very busy. Hope to see more of Ada's friends soon.

I start adding Teddy Gram, Yogurt pieces and tiny, round Japanese cookies into her bowl of Cherrios and she eats them all.

Her favorite TV shows are Spongebob, iCarly and Family Guy.

I am thinking about starting the backyard project. I want a small garden and a place for Ada to sit outside when we can't take her to the park. Will post an update on that later.