"No" can be powerful

Wednesday, April 23rd: from Julie
Again, amazing progress today! Wayne is nodding and shaking his head more and more and with more intent and appropriateness. This obviously makes it easier to communicate with him and I would have to guess less frustrating for him since he is able to tell people what he wants or doesn't’t want when asked. He didn’t eat quite as much today at dinner, but still did a decent job of it. As I do everyday, I tell him this is just temporary, he’s not going to be bed-ridden or dependent on others forever. “You are going to come home to us, and play cards and darts in the backyard with me, build Morgan’s Treehouse, and do everything we planned to do. Okay?” I then continue on to tell him that he’s doing things today that he wasn’t doing a day ago, and that 3 weeks ago when it happened, he couldn’t do nearly anything that he’s doing today. He looked at me, and I realized that he wasn’t sure what happened even though I’ve been telling him everyday what happened to him. I told him he had a stroke, and he looked really shocked. “Yeah, pretty freaky. But you lived, Wayne! Honestly, you could have died. But you’re here, and you’re fighting back!” So, he was a bit freaked out and saddened after I told him the whole story. Then about 3 minutes later, I changed Morgan’s diaper and then asked if he wanted to hold Morgan again. He shook his head, waved his hand indicating no, but then also got out a mumbley “No”. I opened my eyes really big and said, “ DID YOU JUST SAY ‘NO’?!?! Wayne!! That’s your first word. You haven’t said anything for 3 weeks!!! Oh my gosh.” And I kept going on and on and he had a happy, shocked, “oh my gosh” look on his face too. Then I started crying, he got a bit teary, and I said, “See! It’s temporary. This is not where you’re going to be for the rest of your life!!”