The day began with “what would you like for breakfast?” -  ”I think oatmeal would be good” Mike said.   I suprised him with “ok, have at it.  I’m going to grab some coffee while you make your oatmeal”.  This was a huge challenge for Michael.   The steps went well; the oatmeal, the bowl, the measuring cup to fill with water and then to the microwave.  I’ve watched Mike make oatmeal before and it pretty much went like it would have before, just took alot more planning.  The measuring cup was a pyrex 2 cup and he filled it all the way up.  “Mike, do you think you’ll need 2 cups of water?”   No, probably not”  but he continued to fill it up anyway….he couldn’t stop.  but it was ok.  Without asking any questions, he pushed the quick cook #2 and the microwave started.   The water boils and I get nervous.  mike opens the door and heads to the counter with the boiling water….and just as I thought, begins to pour the entire 2 cups into the bowl.  I intercept and ask if he wants to keep pouring.  mike starts to laugh and says “help I’m pouring and I can’t stop”.   It was funny but in all seriousness, making the oatmeal wore him out.   

The cognitive difficulties will have the most significant impact for regaining Mike’s independence but you can see that his brain is finding new pathways.  So with repeated stimulation through practice and retraining, mike’s planning and sequencing skills will continue to gain strength.  ”A journey a thousand miles begins with a single step”.

Today this 23rd day of January was a huge day for Mike.  We began the day with the oatmeal challenge and then moved on to the computer.  This morning as Mike and I were going over the calendar, I asked if he felt like looking at the website and checking the comments.  He said “sure’.  I pulled up the site and Mike read the last 18 comments out loud to me.  When we finished he said that he would like to email Jimmy to say “thanks”.  He then followed with “I think should probably thank Amanda and Steph too”. I explained that he had a couple of options if he wanted to send a message via the Internet.  He could email them from Gmail, he could post something on his My Space and then he said that he couldn’t log in because he didn’t have a user name or password.  I told him that I knew his password for Gmail and that we could probably figure out the My Space account.  He said he was talking about the blog.  That he would like to say something there.

I quickly sent Jimmy an email asking if he could set Michael up with a user name and password.  Jimmy came through with the goods within minutes and Mike was able to log in and begin to put his thoughts to the test.  I’ll back up a little - after he read the comments from the blog to me, we also looked at the cluster map and talked about how the entire world was following his progress.  After Mike logged in, I asked him if he had anything in mind that he would like to say.  He said “yes, hello world”.  The rest of the post took him about 15 minutes to put together and he really put quit a bit of thought into what he wanted to say. 

It was amazing to see him go through the process of getting thoughts together.  He was fidgety, he rubbed his head where the bone flap incision was during the thinking time in and the result was the huge message he was able to post.  He spoke, I wrote.  He wanted to type it himself and tried at first but the keyboard proved to be too confusing and he couldn’t navigate the keys for more than a minute at a time.  I told him we could either take a break or I could type it for him.  He opted for me typing so I continued as he had started.  no capitals, not too much spacing and spell check was invaluable for the first few lines he typed himself.  He was so proud of himself.  You could tell he felt re-connected to the friends he loves so much.

I laughed out loud when he said “I really mean keep hope alive, it is my slogan “. I asked him if he knew who originally said Keep Hope Alive, Mike said that he did.  I said, “no…I mean like whose slogan is it?”  He said “it’s mine”.  He didn’t believe me when I said it was Jesse Jackson.  I’m still not sure he believes me…