Progression! Ron is progressing (moved from Specialty Hospital)

I was out of town last week and got behind on Ron's blog. I went to see Ron in Provo for the last time on Sept. 12. It was our mothers birthday, so Kerri, my sister and I went to lunch (I like to go to lunch on my mom's birthday every year to celebrate in spirit).

From there I went to see Ron. He had really progressed in one week. He was chatty and I watched as the speech therapist worked with him again. She gave him the name of a color and something to associate with that color. She assigned him the object (this was a memory game, nothing to look at). Yellow is the sun, green is the grass, red is a stop sign, blue is the ocean, orange is a carrot, white is paper, purple is a flower,  pink is a pelican, brown is chocolate and black is coal. He did pretty well, but sometimes with green he would say the wrong thing (I can't remember now), purple he couldn't ever remember (flower) and blue he would sometimes say river, or lake instead of ocean. Funny thing for white he blurted out "garments", me and the speech therapist looked at each other with a very strange look. He would say it every time and then we had to correct him, no it's "paper". He started doing it on purpose to make us laugh. Pelican was way too hard to remember. He would say papaya each time or anything else that started with a "p" for pink. For coal, he said "tar" which is still good as he was associating the right color to an object! Also very funny was when he would say brown for chocolate, he would use a funny accent and say "chocolaté" (choco'latte) He is so silly.

Left hand and arm (he can lift and wiggle his fingers!! a miracle

He talks about his left arm which is the arm that was in very bad shape. He told me his arm looks like planet of the Apes. He made a funny face as if his hand was talking ("I'm from planet of the Apes").

He wasn't hungry, so I couldn't get him a burger yet. He isn't eating a ton, just enough and he is losing weight instead of gaining. Not too concerning yet. He is so very thin. He couldn't remember the names of my kids and Shane's kids. I had to remind him. He said "Cody had a grand-baby for Shane, right?" No, he isn't married. He remembers things, and then I can be talking to him and he will forget what we discussed all in the same visit. I was told this is all normal with brain injury patients.

When I left I told Ron I wouldn't be able to visit again until the end of next week because I was going out of town. He seemed to understand.