Update: 9:30pm on 2/10

You can imagine that 2 hours of Speech Therapy a day is really hard if you can't speak. Forrest sometime struggles to stay on task and is making a huge effort to understand what his therapist is asking. Today one of the head doctors came in at the end of his session and sat down on his bed to join in. She asked, "Can you to hold up one finger, Forrest?" Forrest had never met this particular specialist, but he obliged her and held up his index finger. Encouraged, she persisted and asked, "Forrest, can you show me TWO fingers?" He was not inspired to respond again, and looked like he might nod off. "Forrest come on, show me TWO fingers!" Forrest realized she is not giving up on this. He reached across his wheel chair tray, took his regular therapist's hand in his and lifted two of her fingers to show the Doctor! The Doctor exclaimed, " I have never seen a patient do THAT before!

After all he's been through, it's a joy to know Forrest's sense of humor is still very much alive.

- Mom

He made great strides in the eating department as well today. His speech therapist had him drink orange juice (with thickening powder) with a straw and cup. Then she brought out the chocolate pudding, which he was much more excited to see. He fed himself several spoonfuls of chocolate pudding and swallowed. The therapist remarked, "This is much better than two days ago when I was shoving ice shavings in your mouth!" That's the first food he's had in 4 weeks.

He was also very interested in the lacrosse magazine laying across his lap. He spent a lot of time flipping through and looking at the pictures and pointing to some of the larger text. We're gonna get him some scuba magazines to look at tomorrow. We watched the end of Inception, which I still have trouble understanding, maybe he understood it better than me.

In addition to making remarkable progress in his therapy, his medical condition remains stable. The doctors are monitoring his infections closely, as well as continuing to adjust his medications to try to control his increasing periods of agitation. Even though we understand the agitation is a necessary phase of recovery, it's still very difficult to watch.

-Austin

PS: in the mail today we received a box of pink t-shirts with "Forrest" and "44" inscribed on them. I wore one in the picture today. We're wondering which Chris sent them, please let us know on the blog, thanks. They're awesome.

Forrest and Austin playing ball

Forrest has begun offering a handshake to people coming into his room