saturday

i know it's been quite awhile since i've written. back at the beginning of the blog, things changed almost everyday. now they don't, although i'm still making progress. it's easy to forget that, until something happens and i surprise even myself. case in point, the biggest thing that happened this month was in ot. i was sitting and helping pull myself forward by holding jana's hands and then bending my arms. she asked if i could pull myself forward and try straightening my legs at the same time. i did, and managed to pull myself into standing! soon, i'll be able to translate that into grabbing a bar or countertop to pull myself up! in other news we got a dog! he's a 4-year-old terrier mix named bailey and he's so calm and well behaved! we got him at the pound. also for halloween, i was fdr and josh was eleanor. we'll put up some pictures.

jenny - you need a medical dictionary. if a patient gets difficult, you quone him.

thursday evening

there's not much going on lately, just the usual. therapy is progressing as normal. i've been getting some e-stim on my hamstrings to make them work better. i think some of the problem is that my quads are over-active and my hamstrings are really weak, so when i try to bend my leg, my quads overpower everything and force my leg straight. grrrr...saturday, we made some pasta salad and i mixed the mayonaisse in to the flavoring all by myself! my grandma came over today and gave me a pedicure! ahh!
gen

jenny - i don't return fruit. fruit's a gamble. i know that going in.

tuesday evening

The last couple of weeks have been very exciting! Two weeks ago, we went to josh’s family reunion at hugo lake, oklahoma. We had a lot of fun with the family and the lake was beautiful! There are some pictures of it. Unfortunately, when we’re sitting around talking, we forget to get out our camera. Oops! Then, last week, went back up to madonna to visit. We saw almost all of our friends. I had an appointment with the speech lab for some tests. It went wonderfully! Since my last visit in february, I’ve doubled the air pressure in my mouth. That’s what makes the hard consonant sounds, like p, k, d, etc. I have also gained a lot of lateral wall movement in my soft pallette. While we were in lincoln, we ate lots of valentino’s pizza and pasta. We also went to the omaha zoo. It was huge and beutiful! I can’t even choose my favorite thing. I loved the aquarium, the gorillas and the desert dome. We have some pictures. All in all, it’s been a really great couple of weeks!

Gen

jenny - they can’t find the problem. It’s really getting ridicurus.

saturday

we haven't written a blog for a while... partly because we're lazy and partly so we would have something to write about. first of all, we went to kansas city this month. a year ago, we probably wouldn't have thought of going to a hospital while on vacation, but we wanted to see our friends at k.u. there are some pictures of them on the picture link. dr. terry told us that he thinks the tear in gen's basilar artery has healed. also, there are some pictures of gen doing situps, balancing on a ball, doing a puzzle, putting stuff into a bucket, and moving pegs. we have a huge crop of cucumbers in our garden. you can see two of them in one of the pictures. a couple of weeks ago, we made some pickles. they are delicious!

-gen and josh

jenny- who so belongs only to his age, references only poppenjays and mumbo-jumbos.

tuesday evening

This weekend, in therapy, I worked with the CPAP machine. In the pictures, it’s the thing with the mask over my face. It’s usually used for sleep apnea, but they’ve found that it helps people with cleft palettes and strokes. I can really tell a difference in my volume and the sounds like p, b, t, d, k and g. this weekend was the one year anniversary of my stroke. Josh and I went out for pizza, which leighton said was morbid, but he laughed when he said it, so I assume he was joking. I really thought the weekend would bother me, and I’m not happy about it, but I realized that things could be much worse.
Also, this weekend, we got a new van! Josh’s uncle flew to florida and picked up. It’s a pretty blue and it makes everything so much easier for josh and I! I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t think I can ever personally thank everyone like I want to. I don’t even know everything that’s been done. So, I would like to thank everyone, who gave financial assistance, visited me, sent a gift or card, or just remembered me in thoughts and prayers.

Gen

jenny- as of today, I am a proud parent of a
one-mile stretch of the Arthur Berkhardt Expressway.

tuesday afternoon

i had a wonderful week! last weekend i went to a cookout at jenny's mom's house and saw lot of friends. it was nice to be able to go everywhere i used to go. then, later in the week, i went to sedalia to the ragtime festival. i got to see even more friends. we saw a good ragtime accordion player, as well as all our favorites. we had such a good time, although it really opened my eyes to life in a wheelchair. i'm used to smooth sidewalks at therapy, but the sidewalks in sedalia were so bumpy. it's nice to know that not all sidewalks are smooth, though. we also got see a really cool fiber festival. they had goats and llamas and sheep. hopefully, we will get to go back next year. we still have the benefit account at smb. it's under susan's name.
gen
jenny- in college i sat next to an alex in art history, and he was always drinking coffee and after every sip he would go "ahh!"

tuesday afternoon

we posted a bunch of new photos. all i have really been doing is therapy and gardening. we planted a bunch of vegetables, but i don't know if they'll make it. the hardest thing i did in therapy lately was laying prone on my stomach. my back mucsles were sore for a few days! i'm looking forward to this weekend. i hope everyone has a good memorial day!
gen
jenny - you need to get involved at the university level, like where freud studied and have all those people looking at you and checking up on you.

sunday evening

last week was good. on monday, gen took a few steps completely on her own with the platform walker. on friday, gen balanced herself sitting on a rubber workout ball. check out the new pictures.

-joshua

jenny- anyone who would laugh at a recital is probably some sort of lunatic anyway. i mean only a sick, twisted mind could be that rude and ignorant.

friday night

we have a new picture link on the left. we'll try to update it every week. this week, i got my own platform walker, so i can practice walking at home. i also got a follow-up MRI done, to see if the tear in my artery has healed. i noticed that therapy earlier this week was great and i feltlike i really accomplished a lot, but today was kind of blah. it goes up and down like that a lot lately and i just can't get discouraged (ha ha, easier said than done!)
gen

jenny- he is a loathsome, offensive brute, yet I can't look away.

gen at therapy

the picture below is a link to more pictures... all of gen at therapy. we got a platform walker in the mail today. hopefully, we'll start working on walking every day at home. gen will be getting an mri next week to see if the tear in her artery is gone. sorry it took so long to write.

-joshua

jenny- the apples are mealy, the oranges are dry... i don't know what's going on with the papayas!

Photobucket Album

wednesday evening

this is gen standing in pt today. she stood for 10-15 seconds 4 or 5 times all on her own.

monday evening

there has been so much going on, i hope i remember everything. we have had a lot of company lately, and i have enjoyed talking with everyone. iknow that sometimes i'm hard to understand, i just appreciate people trying! i'm pretty happy because this week i learned to move candy andpopcorn back and forth in my mouth. it takes a lot of muscles in my tongue and jaw, but it's one step closer to moving all my food over! also,this week, i went to ku med for a follow-up. the last time i was there, i couldn't sit or stand, i still had my trach and couldn't talk. it was a lot of fun to go back! i saw the doctor who cleared my clot and my first speech therapist. i missed some people though, so we will have to go back!
gen
jenny- cartoons are like gossamer and one does not dissect gossamer.

friday night

i know... it's been awhile. we've been keeping very busy.

this week in therapy, gen started working on the parallel bars. we stood her up and put her hands on the bars and she was able to hold herself up without any help at all. we also worked on walking with the bars, and gen helped by sliding her hands forward on the bars.
tonight, as we were working out, gen lifted her arms up from the shoulders. she has been working on this for months. look at the picture at the bottom of the page.
-josh

sunday evening

rehab is going well. we had almost all of last week off because we took a trip to lincoln. gen got some more phenol shots in her legs and in her arms. the weather was awful the entire trip. halfway up, we had to stay overnight in a roach motel because the snow was coming down so hard. we were almost run off the road by a semi. once in lincoln, the temperatures were well below zero. today, we went shopping on the square. we got some pretty good deals and got to see gen's family.

jenny- here's what you do: you bring a lightweight jacket, that way the sun comes out, you play the jacket off the sweater.

-joshua and genevieve

sunday night

the bears lost. we are not happy.

gen's speech therapist is wonderful. she has her doing a whole new tongue/mouth/face workout every day. hopefully, we'll see some good results on her facial and mouth muscles soon. she hasn't done much of anything new in ot. her therapist is still getting used to her. pt is still kinda rough, but it will get better. gen hadn't taken steps in about three weeks, so it may take a few days for her to loosen up. gen and i bought a couple of fish and a snail earlier this week from petland. i thought the fish wre going to die, but they haven't yet. they have these cool cubicles you can sit in while they bring you puppies to play with. we also went to a wheelchair van place to check prices. they told told us that the cheapest ramp van they'd seen cost as much as a house. we'll have to keep looking. sorry its taken so long to write. i'm very lazy when it comes to blogging.

jenny- i feel reborn... i'm like a phoenix rising from arizona.

-joshua and genevieve

wednesday afternoon

gen started therapy today! gen really likes her new therapists. madonna sent a huge fax about gen to freeman outpatient, so they were already prepared. she was really glad to get out of the house after two weeks of being cooped up. she will still be getting an hour of ot, pt, and speech almost every day.

jenny- it's tough keeping your feet dry when you're kicking in a skull.

-joshua and genevieve

wednesday evening

we've had a long and icy week. we had to cancel therapy this week due to the tree and power line draped across the wheelchair ramp. we've rescheduled for next wednesday. we lost power for a few hours on sunday, and just when it started getting cold in the house, the power came back on. we finally got our internet back on tonight, after two days.

-joshua and genevieve

tuesday night

we are home and just about settled in. we've been working very hard getting moved in and we are very tired. we start back to rehab next week.
-joshua

wednesday afternoon

i am actually typing this myself using a wireless headmouse. i can control everything with my head. it's almost time to come home and i'm very excited to see everyone! just please call at least an hour before you come over in case i'm napping or at therapy. the number is 674.0061. thank you.

jenny- her bouquet cleaved his hardened shell, and fondled his muscled heart. he embibed her glistening spell... just before the other shoe fell.

-genevieve