Tuesday Jan. 8th thru Monday Jan. 14th

This week Debbie has been busy setting up the appointments for Christopher’s follow up doctor visits. He will be seeing a plastic surgeon to close his trach site. It is should be healed at this point but looks as if it may need a little help to close it completely.

Christopher will also be seeing the urologist, Dr Jeff Carney, for follow up surgery on his bladder. He is the same surgeon who did his initial surgery at Grady. We really liked him and we feel confident he will do an excellent job.

Lastly, we are scheduling him with an orthopedist to correct the knee injury he sustained during the accident. It is now creating some issues as we try to increase his time weight bearing.

We are happy to say during his check up at the Shepherd Center, it was revealed, Christopher has gained fifteen pounds since his last check up. This is remarkable, he is definitely eating well, we seem to be well on our way to getting him back to his original weight.

Debbie has been feeding him during normal mealtime hours, getting him use to having something by mouth at breakfast, lunch and dinner times. It is obvious it is working well. We will be trying him on some additional foods in the coming week. Going back to the baby food days, pureeing everything he eats.

We had a great visit with a person, Leo Hilton, who Kathleen Snow recommended to us. Leo has been working with Nathaniel Snow, Kathleen’s son, who had a very similar brain injury as Christopher, about 2 years ago. Leo is a trainer and the owner of Ultimate Performance, based in Woodstock, GA. He has volunteered to work with Christopher to assist us in his recovery efforts.

We would like to thank you all for the continued meal deliveries. We have had some fabulous food, as you can tell by my increasing waistline. The Taylors, Amy, Terry and their daughter Lindsay joined us for dinner Friday night.  They prepared a wonderful meal consisting of grilled salmon, asparagus, pasta, bread and salad. We had a great time together.

Lindsay has been in school in Brisbane, Australia studying to be an occupational therapist and will be leaving soon to return to Australia to complete her studies.

We had a quite weekend, Davis worked with Leo on Saturday morning, Leo also coaches lacrosse at River Ridge High School. He is from Syracuse, NY and played in high school and college. He is a man of many talents.

Debbie spent the afternoon running errands, getting her nails done and going to the grocery store, Christopher’s appetite is increasing.

While she was out Tom Joyner came by to deliver some cookies his daughter had made for Christopher. Tom who is the director of the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes program and I have talked several times, trying to organize a good time for him to visit. He has recently had surgery on his shoulder, so we appreciate him coming by while trying to focus on his own recovery.

Saturday was so mild when Debbie returned; she and I took Christopher for a walk around the neighborhood. We made several stops to see everyone. There were so many people out on their porches enjoying the day.

Monday Christopher had his first session with Leo, Debbie was excited about the exercises Leo was able to get Christopher to do. Later that afternoon Coleman and another friend Jay came to visit. Debbie and the two of them were teasing Christopher about what his first words were going to be, and as they were laughing at each other, Christopher smiled and laughed out loud. Yes, laughed out loud. Unbelievable, Debbie called me at work and the two of us just cried.

I know it is only a matter of time before he starts talking. This is just the first of many surprises in store for us this year.