Nov. 22, 2008

It continues to amaze me what the power of prayer can do. Other than his legs being completely useless and his fingers and hands difficult to control at times, Jake is doing remarkably well and eating small amounts of food. When he got up, he ate some cinnamon toast for breakfast. Then he decided it was time to rearrange our den where he spends most of his time. We switched the couch with the recliner and chair/ottoman. We also put the TV on a trunk on our hearth so it is a little higher and easier for Jake to see. Sarah, Chad, and Riley came over after the switch and stayed with Jake and Memaw while Johnny and I went to Home Depot. We bought a patio heater for Jake as he spends so much time outside and it has really been cool the last few days. After we finally got the heater together, Jake sat outside next to it for quite some time. Hopefully he won't be as chilled when he sits outside as this has always been a concern for us. Johnny and I cleaned up fall leaves in the afternnoon and Jake visited with Lisa, Kevin, and Haley. In the early evening, Johnny and I decided to go to Wal-Mart and Jake said he wanted to go too so, with Memaw in tow, the 4 of us loaded up in the Cavalier. Jake wanted to use one of the electric carts, so we put him onto one and he took off. He was a shopaholic for one hour and filled up the basket on the front of the cart. At one point, Johnny went by himself to the food section and I went to the pharmacy section to get some ThermaCare patches for Jake's back and neck. I left Jake and Memaw in the men's department looking for gloves, hats, pajama pants, etc. When I got back to Jake and Memaw, she was putting a belt around Jake as he sat in the cart. It seems that while I was gone, Jake slid down off the seat into the foot area of the cart. Memaw couldn't lift him back into the seat so Jake had to ask a Good Samaritan who was walking by to lift him into the seat of the cart. The poor guy had had rotator cuff surgery recently and said he would do his best and he did. Jake's comment was "I can't believe both my parents left me!" Oh well. We all had a good laugh about it as there is nothing else you can do. Jake wasn't done shopping, so now that he was belted in, he headed to the food section and threw all of his old favorites into the cart - Trix cereal, Cheetos, Fritos, cinnamon rolls, and Little Debbie cakes. We finally had to make him leave saying we could go back tomorrow. As we were checking out, we realized we were in the car with the wheelchair in the trunk and we had approximately 10 bags of groceries and a bag of dog food. It's a good thing the Cavalier has the fold down back seat as we were able to put bags of groceries in the space at the back of the truck. As it was, Memaw and I had bags between us in the back seat and I had to hold the dog food in my lap. Another memory for us to laugh about. We stopped at Whataburger on the way home and Jake got his usual #1 plain and dry - meat and bread only - and a #1 for Lisa who was coming over and we headed home. Jake ate half of the burger and half of the fries and at 9:00 we took him to his bed and went to bed ourselves. Lisa and Susie spent the night so we should get a good night sleep.
Keep praying as you can see from the blog how well the prayers are helping Jake lead as normal a life as possible.
We love you all,
Carolyn/Mom