October 28th, 8:30 p.m.

According to most everyone coming in contact with Jess, he is changing. Small but good changes! He seems more aware of his environment. Amanda held his arm while he painted a J on his paper in art this week. She is so good and patient with him at school and I know he is grateful to her for their companionship. We also have Daniel on Thursday who takes him to the horse arena and swimming every week. He always makes me smile with a joke or two. We have the best caregivers in the valley! They are just like family.

Jess was able to ride the horse around cones set up in the arena this week. The volunteers all agree it is so much easier to support him. His trunk is getting stronger and his eyes are more focused straight forward. He still has to ride with the neck brace and with 4 people at his side. We are so thankful to the volunteers that show up twice a week.

We made his grandma cry the other night as she watched me ask him to kick his leg up and he responded with a couple of huge kicks with each leg while sitting in his chair. At times he is so responsive and tries so hard to do what he is asked. At other times I know he is just so frustrated he just says to heck with it or maybe he is off with the angels running through some beautiful field.

I had Leslie, the speech therapist from Burley, come back last Friday to help me with evaluating Jess’ swallow. She said she could see lots of little changes in him since her last visit in March. We decided to try another way of having him say “yes” and “no” with his hand. He opens his left hand quickly when asked so we are asking him to open his hand for yes and close it for no. It seems to be more consistent than eye blinks. She also is having me feed him bigger bites of pureed food and more at one time. It would be so wonderful to get rid of the feeding tube. She told me to work on him sticking out his tongue and puckering his lips. Voice and swallow use so many muscles we don’t even think about.

We still think we are going to wake up one morning and Jess will be back with incredible stories of where he has been. We realize that would truly be a miracle. But, don't miracles happen every day?

Happy Halloween!