Saturday, March 27, 2010

Daniel Responding More and More

Recently Daniel's Speech therapist called Cathy with some exciting news. Daniel was answering questions with one or two words. This was very validating to Cathy and to all who have spent some good times as of late with Daniel. We are very excited that Daniel is now able to purposefully answer questions and that he is accessing memory files and putting words together. Articulating speech is a very complex process that we all take for granted...we do it automatically.

Family and friends have shared many examples of Daniel responding to stories, jokes and questions. Daniel is communicating. Recently, he translated a word into Spanish for me that I could not remember. The word was "swallow." I was reminding to practice swallowing on his own and to work on it even without being prompted. I began to admonish him in Spanish but I had forgotten how say "tragar" the Spanish word for swallow. I told Daniel that I could not believe that I couldn't remember the word for swallow when he suddenly said it for me. It was quiet and soft, spoken more with a breath than with his voice...but it was audible and unmistakable. He had translated a word from English to Spanish. This word may be there and readily available to him as I am sure my mom and others help him practice his swallowing...but he is definitely accessing the files he has for words...he has memories and memory of words...and he is accessing these files more and more.

My neighbor, who is a software engineer and computer genius (or as he might say "geek"), recently recovered some picture files for me from a disk that I had erased. Since I had downloaded (or is it uploaded?) the pictures onto my computer, I went ahead and deleted them from my camera's memory card so that I could take more pictures. I had already deemed the pictures lost forever. When I told him about it he was not impressed by fatalism. He took my disk, found some recovery software online and was able to recover the pictures from the traces that had been left on the disk.

So, Daniel has these files and he needs our help to excercise his brain power and get access to them. He is recovering all the time! Thank you to all who have gone to visit Daniel. I continue to be inspired by the folks that take time to hang out with my bro. Onward to a new stage in our journey with Daniel.

8 comments:

  1. WOW! That is some great news! Keep up the good work Daniel !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yay! We know you will be back Daniel!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Praise God! Never lost the faith.

    Blessings.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ohmy goodness this is so amazinggg, i can't believe thinking bout this makes me want to cry with happinessss!

    ReplyDelete
  5. These are amazing news! we have been praying for Daniel all along. God answers prayers!
    Keep up the faith!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is Cathy's sister, Jennifer. Cathy shared this amazing news with me when I saw her last Saturday at our nephew's birthday party. Since I live in the LA area I hadn't seen Daniel since Valentine's Day so I made sure I took the time to head over for a quick visit before returning home with my 18-month old daughter. I'm sure you can all relate to the overwhelming feeling I experienced when Daniel was able to say my name after asking him to try. It was beyond words, a moment I will cherish and hold in my heart as I think of him daily as we all do. Just as awesome is seeing the joy and inspiration this milestone has given my sister & the entire family. Daniel said hi and bye to his niece and seemed to light up as I held her up to him to give him a hug...she was excited saying "Uncle Dan" over and over; I know he was just as happy to see her! The other highlight of my quick visit was succeeding in getting Daniel to laugh without making a conscious effort. Our sister Michelle was there and we were out on the patio when a bug apparently flew into Dan's eye...as Michelle noted this I was chasing Juliette around the patio and joked that it was "dangerous out there" and Dan let out a big laugh, so cool. Of course Michelle & I high-fived as we all hear how tough of an audience he can be. I highly recommend that any of you that haven't seen Daniel in a while try to see him as soon as you get the chance, it is beautiful. We love Daniel, Cathy & the kids so much and coudln't be happier for this miracle! Can't wait to get back for a visit soon...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow! That's awesome! This is Jennifer Sandy from the Norco Voice. I wrote a story on Daniel a few months ago, and I would love to do a follow-up piece. Please email me at jsandy91@gmail.com.

    ReplyDelete