Excerpt from Seth-n-Jode's 2006 Christmas Letter (which Seth always writes):

We have a cat. She mostly sleeps all day and otherwise does what she wants. She climbs trees. She chases hair bands across the floor. Occasionally she kills a mouse and leaves it under my desk without its head. She always lies down on the paper I’m reading. She walks across my head every morning. She never gets punished for anything. She purrs a lot. I want to be her.

Seth needs to heed this advice for now especially the part about purring and sleeping a lot!   He needs to heal.  And that is going to just take time. Yet he squirms all the time.  He has never been comfortable laying or sitting.  He is constantly in motion.  We got him a trapeze bar with a triangle that hangs above his head so now at least he can do pull ups and adjust himself with his good right arm.  That seems to help him a little.  Although now he is putting his bad left arm up there too and my mom admonished him that he could pull his shoulder out if he isn't careful and the doctors will take away his shiny new trapeze bar.

He's never been a complainer and he doesn't complain now.  But today he told me it was a pretty bad day.  For Seth to say that, it must have been bad.  He doesn't want to take too many pain meds but I have asked him to take them when he needs them.  He is talking completely normally and cogently now.  I'm starting to go over things with him about decisions to make on things back home.  I have my mate back.  He'll have even more ugly spots then he used to but thats ok with me!  I like ugly spots. Hooray!

He had spiderman visit yesterday!  Our friend Lori, dressed up in a spider man suit and slunk into the room like spiderman does!  We were all laughing like crazy as she spidered around.   I told her that she needed to hang from the ceiling and have Seth peel off her mask and kiss her to really make me believe (just like in the movie)!  The whole hospital knew about it and Lori went up to the 4th floor to another guy who liked spiderman too and gave him quite a thrill, I'm sure. 

We have the best friends and family. I really mean that.  So many people have just dropped what they are doing and come to help Seth and I.  I really don't know how to thank you except to say thank you.  Joel and Terryl came by and visited for a few days and really helped me out when I was especially blue.   This "system" I talked about in my last post can be very draining and is more than a full time job just to ensure that Seth gets the best care possible every day and keeps moving forward to the end result of finally coming home and is able to execute The Plan.

My mom and I will be visiting the acute rehab hospitals next week which will be the next step in Seth's recovery.  Terryl mentioned one in Boulder that we will also be looking at.  She had a friend that went there and said it was awesome.  If anyone has any info they'd like to share on Craig Rehab, Spaulding or the Boulder Mapleton facility, I'd love to hear about it.

And then after that he gets to come home.  But that is looking way to far up this mountain we are climbing.  We have most likely six or so weeks of hard hiking where we are now.  Seth especially needs to relax over his bed just like Kitty does wherever she is and sleep and purr alot (in between his therapies)!  Wish us luck!