I finally came home after 3 weeks in ICU and 4 more months as an inpatient. I had left home on New Year's Day and came back on Memorial Day weekend. It was great to be here! There were some differences, though -- for example, I had round-the-clock aide care, a hospital bed in the dining room, nurses visited 3 times a day, and I also received most of my food through a G-tube in my stomach. Nevertheless, it was good to be home.

I still went to the hospital for PT, OT, and Speech on an outpatient basis. But we started adding new activities at home. The first of these was music with Bobbi Justice. I played piano and percussion instruments. And I did exercises to the music and I started singing again. This quickly became my favorite session.

I had been in the water in indoor pools over the Winter, but I felt good about getting back to my favorite outdoor pool at Orchard Hills. The water helped support me, even when I could not support myself yet. Also, I had grown up at this pool and visiting there brought back lots of old memories.

By July we made our first attempt at not using a wheelchair van. It took 3 people to help me get in and out, but it felt good and it sure was fun, to get back to a more "normal" style of travel.

It was a challenge, standing up in the parallel bars. My left side was still not working well, so I wore a huge leg brace. Also, I only felt secure when someone was with me, holding on to my gait belt. I wonder if it was this hard to learn to walk the first time?

Here we are way up North in Charlevoix -- that's my mom, my brother, and my sister with me in the picture. We rented a wheelchair van and crammed it full of all of my supplies and equipment. Friends Kay and Dave Morrison loaned us the use of their condo. It was beautiful up there and it was a fun vacation, getting away from the normal therapy routine.

The families and staff of Emerson School donated thousands of dollars to buy me a laptop computer. Computers have always been important to me in the past, especially in communicating with other people. It was great that it was a laptop, because I could take it every where with me -- and I did! Using a computer is certainly useful today -- but even more importantly, this helped me connect again with activities that had always been a love of my life.

I was really beginning to hate being "wheel-chaired" so we all began to focus on more independent movement. Please see me On The Move as I switch over to a walker and then to a cane!

Like TBI recovery, building this web site is also a long-term process. My parents and I started it, to help me remember what has happened. Perhaps others can learn from it, too. Primary pages on the site at this time are as follows: