Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Pure KT's visit to Tennesee

so I went down to Nashville Tennesse and had some visits with our dear Ms. Hollis. Let me tell you that girl is Taaaalking! ye-haw! I walked into her room and couldn't stop smiling. Diane asked Hollis, "Do you know who that is?" and quick a wink Hollis said, "That's KT, Hello KT!" and I kissed her face. Hollis is doing well, all things considered. She was laughing and making fibro mialga jokes. She was able to stay pretty focused during our visits, but also tired and had to rest from time to time. We sang some of the Little Mermaid "Look at this stuff, isn't it neat, wouldn't you think my collections complete!"

And so the girl is still in there, as we've known all along, fighting and working hard to reclaim what's her's. Hollis enuciates each syallable and has a full blown Nashville accent, the kind she gets after having a few ;) very cute.
Diane says her strongest memories are from her childhood, but she remembers her more recent past too, Dancing, the Derailleurs, DPW, San Francisco, etc. Her short term memory isn't great, recent visits were hazy for her it seemed. She asks Diane for help sometimes when she's having trouble saying something, she says "Can you feel me?" Yes, Hollis, we can feel you.

On my next visit, Diane said Hollis was grumpy. It was strangely a relief to hear, the grawly side, Grewahhh. We watched The Little Mermaid, and I braided her hair. When I came in the next day she asked me to braid her hair again, so she is remembering things day to day. I worked on her right arm for awhile. She said she couldn't feel it. Although Hollis has great control over her left arm, she can't feel her right hardly at all. We need to encourage those neural paths to connect again!

The last visit I re-read some letters that had been written to her, and we looked at the BRC street signs that were signed last summer. She remembered everyone, and kept saying, "oh, I didn't know! wow!" When I left Hollis made a point of telling me how important our visit was, so keep contacting Mz. H, she misses us.

Besides visiting Hollis I was in Nashville to look at colleges. I'm going to spend a semester of school in Tennessee in Jan. and plan on spending time with Hollis. So lets get a list of exercises, games, activities to do with Hollis to forwards the Haul-ass recovery.

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KT