Mom and I got to Good Shepherd this morning to find Andie sitting up in bed, swinging her leg around as in - where have you been??? She relayed that she was up early and looking around for us and as we were on the way in she called Dad to ask for something. Once we got there and after much patience, laughing and "Oh, never mind ... -oh, geeze! " on her part I figured out that she was happy that I took some of her hair rollers in and now wanted hairspray - Eureka! She said It looked "bee-ut-i-ful" and now look at it!!

Sample quotes: "Duh!... Some I do good and some I ...duh!" ... along with very animated facial expressions, another one - " doodle! - .... who the heck is doodle?" " these are lackin' - NEVER MIND!".

Mostly converation is her trying to say something and other words come out then we laugh and I try to guess at the point of what she's saying and somethings we narrow down and sometimes she just gives up. I try to have patience and give her time to think but it's tough to just sit there and not put words out there for her and IF we get the gist of what she wants to say it can take quite a while.

Mom and I spent time sitting with her out in the entryway to her ward - just a change of scenery from her room then we moved into the rec therapy room and goofed around with the air hockey table then literally sat there for over an hour while Andie tried and tried to get her point across about something where: you win something... ? she drew a rectangle and numbers in the corners...? she wrote out the worn BUNNIE ? she mentioned the letter T ? she mentioned something starting with a W and I got stuck on Wendie's - nope - not it... she mentioned Union Blvd... still ???... I really have to give her credit for sticking with this one and not giving up. We FINALLY figured out that when we were going over the calendar and she saw that Dad's birthday is coming up she wanted us to take a coupon that she had from Ruby Tuesday's (I guess it's on Union Blvd, near Wegmans and there's a bunny on the back of the coupon) and give it to Dad since she can't do something for him herself. WHEW from all of us!

Even though she had only one hour of OT today I think it was a very productive hour. She ended up across the therapy table from a woman who had fallen and has a brain injury on the right side. She's very articulate and was a nurse - she was saying things about how she feels at times , like people think she's stupid, or she's sad or thinking why me... and then telling us that her family mentioned a book and / or a T- shirt that says "I've had brain surgery - what's your problem?" and as she spoke about the emotions she's gone through Andie was saying " I 've had everything".

I think the support group for adult brain injury patients will be a good next step for Andie so she can talk more about this stuff with others who have been through the same sort of thing.

When I first read literature about aphasia I noticed that the one newsletter was called "Let's Talk" - Okay, it's put out by the speech therapists, and that some of these people that can't truly express themselves have a monthly meeting. Oh, the irony.