August 29th, 5 pm

Per Rich's request, here is an update from my late morning visit with Jeannette (Sam went to Willow to do errands with Rich)

When I arrived at St Elias, Jeannette was sitting up and Ann, former Willow librarian was visiting and feeding Jeannette ice chips. Jeanette was doing very well with the speaking valve, and she was alert and her old joking self.  After Ann left, the speech therapist came in. Part of her routine is to get Jeannette to eat normal food.  She did awesome, eating some cream of wheat with honey and milk.  She also got some bananas and plenty of water. After eating, Jeannette got to play 15 questions and do some other cognitive tests. She did very well on all of it and her therapist pronounced her ready for level 2 food. That is real food!  She wanted a soft boiled egg.  She will be concentrating on eating this week and move into more mental gymnastics next week.  Jeannette and I had a pretty good conversation after that.  She was explaining to me the Drs' proposed plan for future work that will make her the bionic woman. She was smiling and letting the nursing staff know how appreciative she was every time they turned her or adjusted her bed.  The tough part was that, now that she can communicate so well, she asked me to do something I wasn't supposed to...bend her knee. We'll all have to be careful that she doesn't trick us into doing something against Drs orders.  She had a busy morning and started to doze, and it seemed like she was fighting sleep to talk to me, so I reluctantly left. Sam headed to St Elias mid- afternoon, so the next report should be from her. Sully