All,
It's been about a week since I've been to visit Roy. He is in good spirits and is getting more use out of his leg. Still not great progress with his arm yet, but it seemed a little less painful when I saw him last.
Speech recovery has slowed somewhat, but it's a very interesting process to communicate. It's a mixture of animal/vegetable/mineral mixed with 20 questions, mixed with understanding the parts of speech, mixed with reading body language. So you figure out if he's trying to make a statement, ask a question, or raise a topic. Then you try to narrow in on the subject, (person, place or thing) then predicate if it's a statement or query if it's a question. Lot's of waving you off the wrong path down the tree and a lot of trial and error, but with persistence and patience, it works--even if you have to let an idea rest a while and come back to it later.
I'm updating you from Rhinelander, WI, site of our annual family fishing tournament for smallies, the name of which he invented:
WFELDWSMBFT. I'll let you all ponder that! (hint: SMB= smallmouth bass).
The immediate-family consensus was that Roy was not able to make the trip up here at this time, and his son and his family could not join us, either. But my dad, brother, and I are up here carrying on as usual.
You can read about it all here if you want:
http://gnasdls.blogspot.com/Roy also invented the acronym for GNASDLS, come to think of it.
The next big event is October hunting, also named by Roy, the "Bonasa Blast", so hopefully we'll get him out for a drive in the fall colors and see some "road birds", before the bleak Wisconsin November weather sends us inside.
Wish I had more "progress" to report, but it is slow going and steady. You don't see it so much day-to-day, but week-to-week, he has a little more movement, and a little more vocabulary.
We'll have to see if he's up to viewing the auctions again soon. I downloaded the RIA stuff and looked at the catalogs online and I don't know how he correlated all the data for you guys. It looks like a lot of work!
Anyway, any of you ever seen any woodshop jigs or workbenches for handicapped folks? I don't know if he could ever checker anything with his left hand, but, it may be worth a shot just to handle some nicely grained wood again.
Still a long way to go, I know.
Brad
