Abby update - November 29

Yesterday was a wonderful day (thanks to all of you who shared our joy so fully!), but today brought reassurances and joys of its own. Once again the speech therapy sessions get our attention. It still takes a lot of effort, but Abby is producing more and more sounds with our prompting. In addition, today just helped to alleviate some of those fears that always lurk around with a brain injury. Today Abby read! The therapist used written words and asked Abby to identify objects that matched what she was reading. It was just such a reassurance to see our Abby reading again (you'll want to check out the "Who is Abby?" section below to fully appreciate why). Abby also gave answers to some simple addition and multiplication problems and was able to answer lots of questions about pets, family members, her address, birthday, etc. Many of the answers are whispered, and sometimes she gets certain words stuck in her head (this afternoon it was her bird's name "Paquita"), but it's so comforting to see her mind healing and working and so heart-warming to feel that she can finally communicate back to us.

In fact, I'm loving Abby's whispers. Sometimes she'll whisper things that only I will catch (some of which are quite witty, even), and I feel like we're reconnecting in a special way--and I have this surge of hope that once again we will share special moments as a mother and daughter--and I thank God for another petal opening on my lovely blossom.

With love,
Abby (& Paquita's) family

WHO IS ABBY? - page 4
Abby’s a good student. She’s always made Honor Roll at school and often gets many of the top awards for grade-point average, most 100’s, etc. As you might expect, given her parentage, she enjoys and does well in science. She qualified for state-level academic competitions in geography, spelling, and listening (huh?) over the last couple of years, but her first love has become reading and writing. She’s an avid, avid reader (her brother will tell you that she doesn’t like to do anything else…) and really consumes books that interest her—mostly horse books and historical fiction with lots of adventure. She’s also a good writer—though she doesn’t often take the time to sit down and write, she’s good at it when she does. I guess her one academic weakness might be math—although she does well enough at it, she’s like her Dad in putting it pretty low on her list of favorite subjects…