Bear with me... this is my first post, they will improve!!!

Thursday, 8 March 2012

Well, Wes made some good progress today, he is a fighter and basically pretty awesome. He’s slowly gaining strength and making improvements, I’m not sure specifically what those improvements are but I will let you know when I find out, but I am sure they are pretty spectacular!  Yesterday Wes got a new nurse too, whose name is Todd, Todd is a he, and contrary to popular opinion men can be nurses. It did not take them long to realize that Todd is a member of our church. After just a few minutes of talking, my dad realized that Todd had married the daughter of my dad’s best friend from childhood. Rodger and my dad did everything together from the age of 9(ish) until my Dad’s family moved from Arizona to New Mexico.  They had not seen each other in over 30 years, what a reunion that must have been. They would spend all of their summers and Saturdays riding horses and driving cars at his father’s car lot at Townsend Motors. When he realized who Todd’s father in law was, my dad asked him to let Rodger
know He was in the hospital with his son (Wes). Todd told him that his father in law does not do hospitals and that he was sorry because Rodger would probably not come visit, but he would tell him anyway. Well surprise, surprise, (but not really because my dad knew Rodger would come) today Rodger came by the
hospital for a visit. My dad said it was good to be back in touch with Rodger after all these years.

Friday

Today Wes got to take a field trip to a sweet gym, not Gold’s Gym, not any gym you all have likely heard of, but a sweet gym, a fantastically awesome gym where they teach cool skills, a gym that helps fellows like Wes, and if they work hard, they improve by leaps and bounds! It really was an amazing place. It had basketball courts, sport courts (I’m not sure what a sports court is but it sounds cool), indoor track, therapy pool, lap pool, whirlpool, fitness training equipment and rock climbing wall. Some of the cool programs that they train for there are: adaptive rowing, sports programs (again, sounds cool, but I’m not sure what it entails), nutrition education, recreation programs, wheelchair basketball, Yoga, aquatics,
swimming, quad rugby (this one gets my vote, it would be pretty cool to play and even better to watch) and power soccer. For the most part, this was Wesley’s therapy today. He got to ride in a bus today that has a power lift on it, so he could just pull up to the lift in his wheel chair and get hoisted up into the bus. They strapped his chair in to the lift with him in it, and up it went. It’s like a four foot one way ferris wheel! This was his first time on the cool bus/carnival ride and his first time away from the rehab center, it was glorious. The trip was also a way to get him out into public a little more, get some exposure with people outside of the rehab center and just be away from the rehab center and help him remember that there is more to the world than that place. After that was done, Wes had another hour of therapy. Wes also had a guy come in this afternoon and that started teaching Wes about the program “Dragon,” which is voice recognition software that converts words to text; after you learn it you don’t need hands to use the computer anymore, pretty high tech, yeah?! It will take him a couple of weeks to get this program down, so if there is anyone in Phoenix that has skills relating to Dragon wouldn’t mind helping Wes out, we would be more than happy to accept the offer. Wesley continues to receive packages and letters from our friends and his school in Three Forks, MT, he loves getting these letters!  We cannot thank you all enough for your kindness. It really does help him to know about all of the people that are thinking of him and praying for him. This can be taken as incentive to the rest of us to send him cool letters and what not that will brighten his day! Do it, write letters!!! Tonight was Devynn’s birthday (Wes’s little ginger niece), so Brittnee and her whole family came down with a cake so that they could sing to her and have a little birthday party for her, that was pretty fantastic and fun, I’m glad Ryanne, Ben and I were there for that… Dal and Ash also came down with Ashley’s parents and brought dinner for Wes. He ate pretty well tonight which was good because he is losing a touch of weight (if you can’t tell from the pictures). Dallin also decided that he and Wes would have a slumber party tonight down at the hospital too, giving Mom and Dad a chance to go sleep somewhere other than the hospital for the first time in a few weeks. Thank you Dal, you are a doll.

Saturday,

Wesley and I went to Rehab which on Saturdays is only 30 min. not enough.
Wes and I worked on our own today for about two hours. While Wes and my dad did this the girls went out for Devy’s birthday and pedicures, Dev loved it. Later that evening Wes needed the
nieces and nephews to come crawl all over him, so Brittnee and Nate obliged and the kids came
over to accommodate him.  Thanks for everyone’s kindness and prayers; they have truly been felt in the last five weeks since the accident. Miracles can still happen, it is never to let for them to happen. We continue to pray for them and as far as things that we are praying for right now, we want to continue to see more hand movement and strength in the hands.