Wow!! We are so blessed to have so many great friends and a wonderful family! We had a Valentine's/Welcome Home party for mom on Saturday. A lot of people came to see mom at home and we had some GOOD cookies and punch and we got to visit with everybody. We had a good time. It wore mom out though but I don't think she would have changed anything!

Today she went to church and sat in the nursery with the kids. Jodi said she sang all the hymns in sacrament meeting. Mom said it was good and that she had fun.

Now the work begins....the therapy at home! Mom doesn't have therapy anymore so she has to do the therapy at home. John will be the "therapist" and help her do exercises! What a job!

She Made IT!!!!

Mom is now home! We are getting her settled in and she seems to be doing good. She is excited to get back to routine. She wants to go to basketball games on Saturday. We are having a Valentines Party on Saturday at 4 if anyone is interested.....

Thanks to everyone who has helped us make it this far....it is going to be a whole new adventure now that she is home!

Well it looks like mom will be coming home on the 11th....On Thursday, the speech therapists took mom to the restaurant called "The Point". It is in the Huntsman Cancer Institute. I have heard it is very good!!! John said mom had a shrimp salad and that she ate more at that lunch than she ate all day the day before! I don't blame her cuz the food she eats now is pretty plain!

No pictures again....Yesterday my friend, Chante, and I went to see mom. Chante is a licensed massage therapist....and a very good one if you ask me! I wanted Chante to show me how to massage mom's neck. Since the stroke mom hasn't been able to turn her head to the left and she says that it is stiff. Chante was able to work on her a little and mom could move her head a little more afterward. Mom had teared up a little when Chante was rubbing her neck, Chante said that massage is an emotional thing and that it is nice to have someone touch you that cares about you and not just a physical therapist or nurse!! I didn't think about that but I bet it is true!! John said mom moved her left foot about an inch or so....she has a brace on her foot now that helps keep her foot more secure.
It looks as though mom will be coming home on the 10th!!! We are all a bit nervous but I am sure with all of us helping her she will do just fine...and maybe even make more progress!!!!

Just a quick note.....We had a family meeting on Monday with the Drs and therapists. It was a meeting to tell us about mom's progress and to talk about what the next step will be. She has sort of plateaued so they think that unless she makes progress she needs to come home...in other words this could be it for her progress. But we know she is in there somewhere and we just need her to work harder!!! It isn't that she isn't working that hard on purpose but she isn't making the connections...it is very frustrating for her and for us! But the bright side is that she will be home maybe next week! Maybe she will make more progress at home. Well that is it for now, we should know more tomorrow....hopefully.....you know how Drs are!!!

*I should tell you that mom still has no movement on her left side...she can transfer from bed to wheelchair pretty good but that is it!

You might wonder who these people are...They are the Jensen's. They are friends of Brian and I. Their little girl, Shelby, who is 7, had an aneurysm. On Tuesday she had brain surgery at the U. She had the same neurosurgeon as Mom!!! They thought she had a stroke because of her symptoms and they couldn't see it on the ct scans. It turned out to be an aneursym in the middle part of her brain and it was 4 times larger than they thought. She was at the U because Primary Children's had never seen anything like her case before....She is doing great now! Shelby, like mom, has a long road of therapy ahead of her. Please keep her in your prayers too! If any of us know how prayers can help it is us!!!

It is interesting how these things come about and how we are hearing more things about strokes than we have heard before....Like the commercials showing on TV.

I thought I would just put some of Jodi's birthday pics on for all of ya!!!! Jodi and Jade...aren't they cute! We are singing "Happy Birthday" to Jodi and her friend Emily has the Gong....we had such a good time! Brian and I took her and 8 of her friends to a restaurant called Bonsai. It is like a Benihana's but cheaper...Mom had talked about taking her and her friends to dinner so Brian and I decided to do it...We had a blast! It happened to be on the night of the sugar bowl so the place was empty...which was good cuz 8 teenagers can get kinda loud!