Speech Therapy Success

I'm happy to report that Monday's speech therapy was an unbelievable success. For the first time I was able to answer all four of the reading comprehension questions correctly! Here's the trick, I need to slowly read the passage aloud twice. And when I mean slowly, I mean s-l-o-w-l-y. Who cares though, it's a start! Woo hoo!

For next week, I have ANOTHER position/argument paper. This will be #4. Luckily, they're never long, just about 2-3 of a page. Each time I have a paper, Julie (my speech therapist) helps me hone in on organizing my thoughts. She's teaching me to use organization techniques, which I know I learned in high school (like idea bubbles), it's not enough to remember how to do a technique, it's all figuring out how to implement them. That's the hard part. I have such a hard time reaching into my brain and finding thoughts. It's weird. I think this part of my recovery is going to take quite a while.

Last night, just as I was falling asleep I had a mini panic attack. I realized the MRI is on January 14th and I remembered how horrible the IV is. I usually end up quietly sobbing. I'm a pretty big ninny. They can never find my vein so they end up digging around in my arm forever, changing puncture locations and veins, then they change arms, and then change back to the original arm. It sucks. I wish I could say that I can shove the thoughts out of my mind, but I can't. I'm trying my best, but until I replace the thoughts with something positive (and I can't seem to find anything that feels quite right) I'm going to be mulling over this for a little bit.

Anyway, all in all, things are going really well. I have two more speech therapy appointments to go in this session. Then, soon, on January 14th I have my next MRI. I'm feeling pretty confident that I'm doing everything I can to recover and be healthy. I'm sleeping 9-10 hours a night, resting as much as possible. I'm hitting this diet with a vengeance. I have yet to cheat or eat anything off my list of foods. I'm maintaining the lower calorie restrictions, and I'm still alive and kickin'. I'm cranky though. Maybe in a few more weeks (it's only been a week and a half) I'll stop craving sourdough bread, homemade cookies, red wine, and all of my other favorites. Small portions have always been my enemy, I'm a lover of food and I tend to go big or go home. Now, I'm trying to fight my desire to eat more. It's EXTREMELY tough. The only saving grace has been the 12lb weight loss. But truthfully, I'd give up the 12lbs if I could eat whatever I wanted. Sadly, this isn't about what I want, it's about surviving. It's my only real long term goal.

From the first neurosurgeon's appointment at the UW I saw this painting. It always makes me smile. I remember thinking of it when I went in for the first surgery, I had walked past it after the surgery prep meeting. I focused on it when I was in recovery. When I was released, I admired it as Danny wheeled me to the car, and Jess Abu Dhabi carried all of the goodies that my friends and family brought me (thank you, thank you, thank you!). Now, every time I head to my speech therapist's office I spend a few minutes along the way looking it. I like to think that someday that'll be Danny and me.

According to the artist, the characters in the painting are not real people, they're bits and pieces of bodies and faces from his mind. It's a fictional event in the painting. I just read the side note yesterday, and I was surprised. I thought it was a real photo, or at least a painting of a photo or moment in time.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this painting with everyone because it gives me so much joy. Every time I see this painting I get the warm fuzzies, and I can't help but smile.