Taking Each Day as it Comes

I never do know what to expect when I walk into the NorthEast Care Center every Saturday morning, after taking a very long deep breath before entering. Will Sam be in a good state, or not. How cognitive will she be...will she be talking this weekend or will she be quiet. If she is talking, will she be confused and talking about crazy things or will she be talking clearly. Will she be spitting out all her food and the staff worried about her or will she be content and eating well. Some weekends all of the above occur, while on other occasions, Sam's state leans more in one direction or the other. Patience and faith I am told, that's what this injury is all about for the family members, patience and faith.

This weekend leaned in an overall good direction. One constant for Sam and I is the love we share. When I arrived Sam always gets emotional and Saturday morning was no exception. She hugged me for a long time and then said "I want to hold onto you forever". The rest of the morning however, Sam kept very quiet with her eyes closed. We did have a therapy session with Carolyn, the occupational therapist and so Sam and I worked together for an hour. I was actually very impressed with how strong Sam has gotten and that Carolyn now has Sam doing sit-ups. Sam never was able to do sit-ups when she was well, so this is a fairly major accomplishment. The sit-ups help Sam's trunk control, which is getting much better. Sam and I then went to lunch, where Sam proceeded to spit-up everything she touched. I tried not to get upset and figured tomorrow is another day. Sam and I then proceeded to "Inner Art" class, where Sam was doing well until Dahlia asked everyone if they wanted to work on hearts in preparation for valentines day. Sam said yes, and so Dahlia drew her a heart on the painting she was working on (with Sam's permission)and tried to get Sam to paint inside the heart. Sam became very upset and frustrated and yelled out that she couldn't do it. Dahlia later explained that she was testing Sam a bit with structure to see what level she was working at and was very sorry to have gotten her so upset. She sees that Sam is doing free-form work and needs to continue to do so for awhile. Dahlia was still terrific through it all in the way that she talked with Sam about her emotions and explained the situation to us. Sunday was a better day for Sam. We both sang to the B52's, and Sam asked me to bring her the largest camera in the world. I told her I'd look into that for her. We then looked through the Howard Hibbard book on the MMA's collection together. I started talking to Sam about some of the art works and she said kindly to me "I don't need to know the things I studied and already know" - wow. There is also always a moment of wow on the weekends with Sam and this was it. She really recognized and understood the art, and didn't need me talking to her about it. The fact she could express herself in this way was great. At lunch on Sunday, Sam ate everything and even asked for more. The CNA's also told me a story about Sam that occurred during the week. - Apparently everyone was in the dining room and Shane was making a lot of noise at the back table (Shane can't talk, but manages to vocalize quite well). Sam got disturbed, so she took her sneakers off and threw them at Shane. I was kind of shocked to hear the story, but everyone who told me thought it was quite amusing and I figured that it was a good sign that Sam can take her sneakers off herself, as this is one of the constant tasks performed in occupational therapy. In the afternoon we sat out in the "living-room" area with the football game on the big TV screen. As the "neighbors" started to gather in the living room, much to my amazement, Sam looked and me and said "you can go now.. you can go home". She wasn't happy about saying this, but I could see she was doing it for me. I gave Sam a big hug and told her I'd see her next week.