Thurs 19th:
Andrew has made very good progress today on several fronts:

He has been awake most of the day.

He has held a fairly lengthy and logical conversation of approximately half an hour. This was concerning where he was and why he was there. This started with him saying "so I've had a stroke at 52", having worked this out for himself rather than being told, and then we told him how he had got there, which he followed with logical questions, which we answered truthfully, but trying to be positive and he ended up by saying to me " you must have been very worried", to which I said "just a bit" and we left it at that. I hope we have done the right thing; he did not seem too distressed; I wonder how much will be remembered tomorrow.

He has also:
- juggled ( yes , really - with three bits of rolled up paper - he could do this before the stroke)

- played chinese chequers with Ned & Sheena ( who got to the hospital before me and kindly engaged him in some productive activity whilst I picked up Andrews niece Lucy from the station; the staff don't have time to do this, so if there is no-one there he just sits in an armchair)

- had a very calm and peaceful couple of hours with Lucy going through recent family history in logical year-by-year fashion, well organised by Lucy and so easy for him to follow. He asked about other family members and spent a little while listening to a CD that Lucy has brought in and has even started to master the CD player

- recognised my sister and brother-in-law who popped in en route to and from Milton Keynes with my nephews, even though he does not see them that often

- actually guessed that one of his visitors was older than they actually are ( I'm not going to say who this is, but all I can say is that that person doesn't look it, and that if you want to be aged younger you had better get in quick)

- has been ageing himself at 50 or 52 ( see above)

- remembered to take his slippers off before getting into bed without being prompted, and has started to put them on when getting out of bed without being prompted either

- has started to use his voice much better and to talk rather than nodding or making faces. I did actually tell him directly to "speak what he wanted to say" something rather than nod and this brought about an immediate improvement; the voice is louder too.

He has had quite a few visitors this evening, and after tea I suppose that you could say that he and his friend Chris gave a sort of half hour mini-concert to the assembled audience in the dayroom consisting of my sister's family, Bob, Lucy and myself, which was very good.

There does not appear to have been much happening on the tests /medical front today.

Lucy is staying with me for a couple of days and this together with the progress that Andrew is making has made me feel much more relaxed; we even went out for something to eat on the way home, which I didn't really want to do up till now. She is going to go in early tomorrow so that I can sort out some "normal life stuff" that needs attention at home.

Lucy was going to help with the "memory book" however, that seems to have grown of its own accord in an organic but not unorganised fashion. Visitors have written things about themselves in it and put photos next to their writing; Andrew and I have done some pages together and I have written some when he has been asleep. We have abandoned the idea of re-organising it now, though Lucy does have some very good ideas involving filing cards which we may take up when we have more time. Andrew is referring to it quite a lot; the section for jokes now has 4 pages of musical jokes, no less.

I am continuing to receive lots of letters and emails with support which I really appreciate and yesterday also information about the TOE test, including an email from someone who had had two.

We still don't know who Eusebio is apart from a famous portuguese footballer and we are also puzzled by constant mention of the word "edelweiss" in many different contexts.

Today my sister purchased a map of England to help with memory of locations. ( I had drawn a map of England with some key places on it - described as "looking medieval" - and I got rather over-enthusiastic with the M1 which extends as far as Scotland, so a proper map is probably a bit more useful)


Love to you all
Gill