Friday 13th:
This morning I found Andrew dressed in "real" clothes as opposed to green pyjamas. The occupational therapist had requested that he be asked to put them on himself, and, with some prompting this was apparently achieved.

On arrival I checked how old he was (6) what the year was (1983) who I was (Gill, his wife) where he lived ( not known) and where he was (not sure).

I had brought in his washburn guitar and took him down to the dayroom where he immediately picked it up and started playing it for about an hour as if nothing had happened. Such sweet music!

He opened around 6 cards and presents and then declared himself very tired so we went back to the ward, where he did not get much rest because lunch arrived. He ate well, but I had to stop him putting pepper on his pudding, and from eating the pudding before the main course.

Then the occupational therapist arrived to do some memory tests in her office (which is her kitchen). These he found very hard. He declared that he was 17, that it was March, that he was born in 1963, that the prime minister was Wilson and that the US president was Johnson. When asked to repeat a 5 sentence story, he could only repeat 5 words. He did much better on the visual memory tests however, and hardly made any mistakes in remembering which pictures ( of both objects and faces) he had seen. He was particularly taken with the picture of one "Catherine Taylor" who I hope is not in the vicinity ( though as the pictures were quite old, she probably doesn't look like that now!). He managed to follow a route that the OT showed him around the kitchen, but when asked to do it 5 mins later could not repeat it. The OT said that his memory was very poor but that it could be trained and would probably take around 3 months.

The ward has been very busy today; the man in the bed next to Andrew is dying and his relatives crave some peace; the bed opposite has been taken by a man of approximately the same age as Andrew whose wife is in the same state of shock that I was in last week. She had been about to go to work when she heard a thump and found her husband lying on the floor. I can only empathise. Several other people have been admitted and the nurses seem flat out.

After the memory test Andrew was exhausted and had to have a lie down for an hour and missed his next task which was to play his guitar before the OT with Stomp member Kevin Adams. However, the OT was very forgiving and said that recovering from stroke needs plenty of rest.

He managed to wake up when friends Dave and Lizzie Miller came to see him. He remembered Lizzie when prompted by the knowledge that she made cakes, but decided that Dave was Mike Chapman. In fairness there is a huge likeness between the two , and if you had a picture in your head of Mike Chapman circa 1976 and aged it a bit, it could be very similar to Dave Miller.

Then he went down to the dayroom to play guitar again, with Kevin Adams, which he did very well for some while and impressed his consultant who came along to listen to "Here comes the sun". (Andrew has not attempted singing, he is concentrating hard on playing). This has been a major achievment of the day. He must keep this up and I would appeal to any musician friends available please to go along and spend an hour or two with him in the dayroom if you can spare the time. He has his washburn locked up at the hospital; let me know if you can go and I will ask the staff to release it.

The consultant is away next week and has left a list of tests and tasks he wants done. Andrew will not be moved for an operation unless, for some reason, he deteriorates. I will speak to the consultant again upon return - so it looks as if he will be there foir a week It is likely that around that time a "home visit" will be arranged to see how well he orientates himself at home.

Andrew also recognised friends Bob,Sean, Doreen, Rory and Chris. Sean supervised supper and successfully prevented a salt-in-the creme-caramel incident. Andrew was particularly interested with pictures of Doreen's birthday party that were brought in.

I left him at 8pm and went with Rory & Doreen for a curry. On return home. I found 4 cards stuck in the outside of the door ( thinks - is letterbox not working , must check) and 2 pairs of jogging pants in the porch. Thank you so much to whoever came today that got the jogging pants for him, this is one less task to deal with tomorrow,and I will pay you when you make yourself known. Lucy - I would really love your help with compiling the "this is your life book", I have to sort through loads and loads of photos, and I would really be grateful for your help in this - it could take hours and hours when I could be at the hospital.

Once again, I feel overwhelmed with the support from everyone - thank you all.
Gill
xx