Message from Ed

Good morning everyone,

Sorry I haven't updated much this past week but there hasn't really been a lot to tell until now. This morning however I got a message from Karen's friend Ed, as he had been up to see her yesterday. I am reposting it with his permission :)

"Hi Rochelle,

Kathryn and I went to visit Karen on Saturday. We got to RHI about 10:00 and stayed until noon. Amazingly Karen was awake (and mostly alert) the whole time. We were there for her only therapy session of the day. The session was with a speech therapist. The goal of the session was to get Karen to eat about 4oz. of pudding; that part was a success. She was able to eat and say word or two between bites without aspirating any food. As you know they plan on trying the swallow study again on Monday. I hope they can remove that feeding tube! Her memory is still a work in progress. She is clearly trying very hard. She could not get the date. But she did remember some things about Tiffin. She is/was teaching 3 classes (gotta check that). Tiffin has 2000 students (that is correct) etc. BTW - Karen was definitely happy to get a chance to eat some real food although the chocolate pudding was sub-par (at least according to Karen :)

It was a gorgeous day here yesterday, diffuse sun with temperatures in the mid 60's. The staff allowed (and encouraged after we asked) us to take Karen on a little excursion outside around the grounds. I think she enjoyed being in the sun for a bit. I asked her some questions about the seasons. Asked her the season. I gave her 3 choices Summer, Fall, Spring. She chose summer.

Karen definitely is Karen and I believe that with enough interaction she will come out of this OK."

Dad also said he was pleased with her progress yesterday and that she seemed much more awake while he was there also. Hopefully they will be able to remove the feeding tube and give her some REAL food tomorrow!

For those who've held off on cards/flowers, she should be at RHI for quite a while and while I don't know her flower preference, I expect she would like anything people choose to send.

Thanks again everyone for your visits and concerns; I especially am glad there are people besides Dad who can come be with her. I'm hoping to get back out there sometime in the coming weeks although it depends on what's happening with my house closing.