Correction...and Update

In an earlier post I said that the hands holding her head belonged to her dad. Wrong. They are Marilee's. Yesterday we visited again (without my camera). She has noticeably grown. Amazing that there are ventilators and so much other equipment that can give a little one like Evy a chance to finish the work begun in the womb. She is still making progress each day. There are a lot of miracles involved with more to come. Heather and I each only got a glimpse. One as little as she is can't filter out all the stimulus so a covered incubator is the norm. She is being fed her mother's milk now, a big step!

Here She Is!

Miracle Girl

Tiny (and I mean tiny) Evelyn Maddison Forrester has been born. She is the daughter of Nate and Marilee Forrester (Marilee is my sister), a much awaited child. I had hoped to post photos from Evysblog a resource of Primary Children's Hospital but as usual I am still experimenting with how to get photos from one place to another. Maybe before long I will be able to post her little self so her size can be seen in comparison to her dad's hands. For now, suffice it to say that she weighed 1 lb. 3 oz. at birth. You see why she is a miracle. I saw her at Intermountain neonatal ICU, where she was born. This week I hope to see her again at Primary, where she has been transferred. The plan is that Heather will push me in a wheelchair again (no, I'm not really that bad off, but it is harder to walk any distance and Heather from childhood wanted to push me in a wheelchair, for some reason or another. Belatedly she has had the chance, but only in this circumstance of visits to Evelyn.) The baby is doing remarkably well but prayers and good thoughts are always welcome!

Break Through, I Hope

Excuse the near duplicate of a previous picture. At least I had my eyes open in the other one. But I wanted to see Megan's smile which reminds me of the excitement we felt yesterday after she had worked hard on my index finger. It has been very stiff. During our time together Thursday, I heard a pop and suddenly the finger could curve down into my palm which it had not been doing before while working with hand therapy. We surmise that I had scar tissue around a 30+ year-old injury to the palm of that hand and finally something gave way which allowed more flexibility. At last! I was getting pretty discouraged about things but something did happen in that moment and I almost got tears in my eyes. Well, truthfully, I did have tears in my eyes but hid them pretty fast. We were both happy! This weekend I get to play with clay. It takes me back to childhood fun which isn't a bad thing to focus on while doing hand exercises!

Visitor

When Chris and his family came over to prune some shrubs for us they brought along this little friend. She was in the road near their home so he rescued her from passing traffic. You can see her little tags. They say her name is Princess and there was a phone number for the owner. Chris left a message then they all came over here. I was smitten instantly. One of the kids wondered aloud what they would do with her if they went on vacation and hadn't been able to make connections with the owner. I told them that if we weren't looking at health things, I would love to tend her. Someone else said, "See, what did I tell you!" My reputation as an animal lover, even on a part time basis is solidly intact. While they were here, Chris got the important call on his cell, so I was only able to enjoy Princess for less than an hour. But what a delight. She was obviously well trained, didn't bark at all during her stay, and I am very glad I got to experience this little dog even for such a short time. Princess is another of my "part-time pets".

Nick with Princess and his cash for a job well done.

Ready to Blog Again!

Funny how being either a caregiver or receiver of care takes so much energy. Even though intellectually I thought it would be good to get back to this, on other levels it was impossible. Not that things are going badly. Far from it. But it seemed to take everything I had to stay afloat. Today is different. It seems that one more thing can be added and this blog is it! I was startled while playing around with loading photos into the computer (which will end up who knows where) to see that the web cam was doing its thing. So this photo is minutes old. I used Skype twice with Heather who now lives not quite an hour away. It is disconcerting enough to see yourself right in front of you (but with a delay in the image) when you are expecting it. Anyway, today I moved up/down, back/forth to try to center the image and smile instead of having my mouth open in surprise. Art is doing well even without using a walker. Today he even vacuumed the front room using our lightweight "Shark". I guess it served as a crutch. Each day still is better than the last. My hand isn't recovering as fast as I'd like. I'm not sure at this point how much flexibility I will get back, but I can type, drive, crochet slowly, play the piano (I can do an octave but tend to hit more than one note with my thumb. I've had the benefit of good hand therapists. Didn't know there was such a specialty before now.

Massage, the best part of hand therapy! This is one of the Megan's who have worked with me.

She is physically tiny, but a powerful woman. Nikki, the receptionist, took the photo.

And here's my guy a little over a week ago before he left rehab to come home. I don't know how he feels about it but I love this photo! He was actually using a walker very efficiently at this time but was pushed down to occupational therapy where he got to do bowling with a Wii! It was a balance thing. He ended his turn with a strike! Too bad we don't have one here. He would probably challenge me to a game.