Day 27

Mat here, posting for the first time.  It's 11:49, Liam crashed about 20 minutes ago, and it's my turn to stay the night.  Liam says he gets a little scared to wake up in the middle of the night with nobody around, but really he wants someone here because it's the only way he's allowed to not have the bed belt locking him down all night.  Erika will take her first full day away from the hospital tomorrow because she'll have Cristin's wedding activities - congrats, Cristin, and well done, Erika, you deserve the break.

Liam starts OT at 9:45am.  This morning his therapist decided it might be a good idea to have him walk down to the cafeteria, get a sense for crowds, and if he did well there, he may be granted a "day out" on Sunday to go watch Magic play in the final (I'll tell you now:  he did awesome, and he gets to go to the match on Sunday).  So he put on his gait belt - Liam, notice there's a "t" sound on the end of that? - brushed his teeth, and we started our stroll down to the cafeteria.  We got to the top of the flight of stairs, moved him over to the right rail so he could use his stronger arm, but I'm not sure he relied it on all that much!  He was striding down the steps, just under normal pace, and it surprised us all that he didn't have to do the little kid-style of stepping both feet onto each step.  The therapist asked, "Wow, are you sure you're okay to take a full step each time?" Liam's response:  "Apparently I am."  Nice one.  Full flight of stairs: check.  After that he weaved the breakfast crowd, Erika holding onto the belt but not aiding, and Liam commented on only one guy in the whole cafeteria, the guy wearing the motorcycle shirt.  "Check out the Harley guy."  He's warming up to the idea of me exercising the Buell until he can ride again, then made a joke about strapping the "gait" belt around both of us and sitting on back while I rode.

I took off to work, but Erika said in the early afternoon they (therapist included) took Liam for a walk outside.  He read a map, walked them a few blocks away to Boren, read the map again, and walked them all the way back to the hospital.  He also wrote in his journal - right handed still because he doesn't have the dexterity in the left hand/arm yet.  Let's just say I could read "Liam and Erika," but he's got nothing on my 5 year-old niece...yet.  I'm sure his writing will progress right along with everything else and be back to normal in no time.

The evening hours saw some usual suspects (Frank, Erika, Joel, Dave from AZ, Ashley and the Mooses).  Liam is pretty chuffed to have all his friends come by, so if you've wanted to stop in but aren't sure about when/how, call someone who is sure and come along for the ride.  He'd love to have another target around to poke fun at for a little while.  Everything considered, things are great.  He still thinks I put him in my truck, snuck him out of here for a drive across the bridge at Vantage, and then brought him back, but he's come to just believe me when I tell him it never happened.  Time to crash out now.  We can't say enough thanks to all of you for all of your support, cards, prayers, emails, pictures and visits - it's all going to help get our boy get out of here and home just that much sooner.