dentedego - Paula and Josh- A Mothers Devotion and Loyalty

Josh and I at Candela's downtown at happy hour.

Yum.

dentedego - Paula and Josh- A Mothers Devotion and Loyalty

Check out this video that Brad put together from DentedEgo. Also, check out dentedego.com. It's a social network about people helping one another in need, regardless of what that need is.

It's been ages since I have updated Josh's blog. So much has happened. It's been over a year since the last update. The wheels are definitely turning in Josh's brain. It is good for him, but more challenging for me. As you can see from this picture of Josh, he can definitely multitask. He is playing Play Station Portable and is on facebook at the same time.

Josh's metabolism is now very speedy. He is pretty fit -- works out at the gym with his caregivers, Don and Rob. He continues to go to the ABI Program with his teacher, Zack. Zack also does brain-training with Josh every day, does yoga and stretching, takes walks at the beautiful parks in San Diego, takes Josh to his weekly swim lesson and his weekly Spanish lesson with Fernando, one of Josh's fellow ABI students. Josh's schedule is diverse and he is very lucky to have such great guys working with him. Oh yeah, we can't forget Mike Jones, Josh's tutor who helps Josh with his speech, reading, writing and "community skills".

Josh is now full of energy. Everything you hear about being exhausted after a brain injury does not apply to Josh. Josh will stay up all night if you let him. He will play Madden for hours, but is now doing a host of different things. For example, he got into sorting things and "organizing". One day he took every video and DVD out of it's case and starting putting them in different piles. He started throwing away numerous movies including Natalie's latest Christmas gift -- the entire last season of Glee. We, of course, told him this was not acceptable and that he couldn't throw out these DVDs simply because he didn't want them. We also told him that the cases protect the DVDs from getting all scratched up. After I put them all back in their cases, Josh took them all out again. We went back and forth with this. Finally, I just gave up and told him, "Don't throw any videos away, just put them in a separate pile and we'll deal with it later..." Josh also got into this thing where he was going through all his old school papers, notebooks, football and baseball cards and started putting things in trash bags. He'd say, "Throw all this away." At first I was upset, but then I decided that Josh was right about a lot of things. We did have too much junk from years past. So, I started sorting things out with him and we ended up throwing out tons of old school papers -- reports that he had written, old homework assignments, you name it.... We cleaned his room. It's easy to just throw everything in a drawer in the desk and forget about it. The good news is we got rid of a lot of junk and Josh's room is clean.

Josh's teachers at the ABI Program thought that Josh's sorting and organizing was a big breakthrough and was a good thing. Something in his brain was definitely waking up and causing him to "organize" things. I was thinking, "Is this obsessive, compulsive behavior?" It seemed obsessive at the time. Now it's over and we're on to the next thing whatever that may be. You never know what the future holds.... Just when I thought Josh was fairly predictable, he changed. I just don't want him to get into the hundreds of boxed football and baseball cards that are in his closet. When Josh was in grade school he would collect and organize those cards for hours. I think he has several complete collections and they are worth money. It would be a drag to wake up one morning and find Josh in a heap of cards sorting like a madman...

Josh went through a phase where he was getting up at 5:30 a.m. every morning. This really was a drag for me since I used to love to wake up early, make coffee, read in bed and chill for a while before the day got crazy and hectic. I was thinking, "I can't get a break... this is a drag..." This went on for several months. Now Josh is sleeping in until 7:15 or so. It's crazy when I think about how he used to sleep until noon or one o'clock. Now he's waking up with the birds.

Josh is still very difficult to understand which is frustrating for me since I have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on speech therapists. It seems that the more his brain wakes up, the faster he talks. He slurs all his words together. He just came into the computer room, looked over my shoulder as I was typing this and said, "F U".

Josh is still very happy, very much of a team player, is extremely social and wants to talk to everyone including strangers. If we go to dinner, he wants to participate in everyone's conversation. The other night we were at the Fish Market and a couple of guys were watching the basketball game and talking about Michael Jordan. Josh then got up, went over to their table and said something totally indecipherable. Most people are good natured about this type of thing, but sometimes people really get freaked out and don't know what to say. It's like Josh has no filter and just reacts to a situation. This is called lack of executive function in the brain injury world. I am trying to work with Josh on this. It's tough. Josh will sometimes just scream like a crazy person. The screaming only lasts a few seconds and then he says, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...." At least he knows that screaming is inappropriate.

A few months ago Josh started complaining that his heart "felt funny". One day as we were driving to work, Josh said, "Take me to the hospital. My heart feels funny." I said, "What do you mean your heart feels funny? What does it feel like? Are you in pain?" Josh said, "I have discomfort." I was thinking to myself, "Well, we have an appointment with Dr. Stenehgem at Sharp Rehab at 11:00. Why don't we just wait until then." I asked Josh if he felt it was an emergency and he said, "No, not really." So we went to work. I gave Josh an aspirin when we got to work. He then had a big breakfast from Lolita's and was laughing and joking with everyone. I figured everything was fine. We went to see Dr. Stenehgem at 11:00. I told him what Josh was saying about his heart and he suggested an EKG. The following morning, I took Josh to see Dr. Cortes, our family practitioner, and Josh had an EKG. Everything was fine. The next day Josh started complaining about his heart again. He said, "Take me to the hospital. I am in discomfort. It's my heart..." Josh was pacing. I decided to take him to the emergency room at Scripps. We went to the hospital, stayed there until the wee hours of the morning and after several tests the doctor said, "Josh is fine. We can't find anything." We went home and went to bed. Josh will periodically say, "My heart hurts. My heart feels funny." I have come to the conclusion that he is doing this to get my undivided attention. If I am talking with my girlfriends at a restaurant, Josh will say, "Mom it's my heart." Now, I have learned to say,

"Josh, you're fine. You're just a little anxious." Thankfully, Josh has not complained about his heart lately.

In spite of the fact that Josh is getting more challenging, he is also getting more manageable in many ways. I took him to the theater for the first time a few weeks ago and he did very well. We went to see Guys and Dolls at the Lamb's Theater in Coronado. Josh greeted everyone he saw but once the play started, Josh stayed focused and really enjoyed the show.

I think things are getting better. I have a permanent companion! Lucky me.

Thanks for reading Josh's blog.