Great news & Great progress

I've got a lot to post about and not a lot of time. It's almost past my bedtime. I'll start with the stuff that might not make sense to the untrained eye. Will did not have to be reminded to call his home teaching family this month. Routine he remembers, things he would write down he would sometimes remember, but the things I didn't mention would generally be forgotten. Well gone are the days of forgetting. He remembers non-routine task and preforms them without my bidding. For you readers this may seem insignificant. To me I want to do cart wheels and sing every time he surprises me with a new "on his own task." Ok I'll give you one more cool thing to me but again insignificant detail to the untrained eye. I was talking about someone in the news and Will turned to me and said "oh that Paul Cardall" guy? -- I almost fell over in my chair but decided not to because I was driving. Not only could Will remember a name he only read once, but it meant he had read or listened to the news that day. He is coming back to the real world. I have to admit I like the world of -just Will and I and family but I'm thinking those days are less and less. Will is studying more and interacting more than he ever has! (I'm sure we'll always be #1 in his life but the difference will be we won't be the only ones in his life in the future;)

OK now for the good news. A cardiologist, Dr. Burlew, at the University of Utah took Will on this last week. Will is "job shadowing" but more than that he is engaging in more resident like activities. Interacting with the patients and dialoguing with Dr. Burlew about them. This is exciting because Will has been considering specializing in cardiology once his internal medicine residency is done. This will be great experience to that end.

Last but not least. Life is good. Will and I spent Friday night camping in the rain with his little brother (who needed some merit badge points for his eagle scout). Will surprised me with the new iPhone for my birthday this past week. I have been walking around with a perma grin all week. Now I'm like all the other account managers at the advertising agency I work at. We have a few leads on jobs and are looking to engage with more doctors in job shadowing. Will continues to volunteer at globus relief and the Temple. He took the first of a two part occupational test-- which I'm sure he passed with flying colors because it was the physical functionality test. Next is the "stay up for 30 hours test" -- I know crazy. I'm sure he'll be fine though. He is pretty alert when he is awake. I don't see him doze off like the old days. OK this post is long enough. Enjoy the pictures above of Will and Nate setting up a shelter from the rain on our camping trip and of course the shelves Will built with very little instruction. I was at work and came home to new organization for our storage!!! Take care I'll blog again soon.

Summer

Better and better all the time

The last few weeks have been great! I would go so far as to say Will's best weeks yet! Like I've said in earlier posts it is difficult to pin point Will's deficits right now because there are less and less of them all the time. His memory is reaching pre-stroke levels. He even remembers names (which he could not do a month ago).

Since we're too lesser detectable levels I hope to effectively communicate the improvements. Executive functioning. If you have followed this blog long enough you have read quite a bit about this topic. One of the highest levels of functioning that we have is the executive functioning... It does not fully develop until we are around 25 years old. That is why you'd have to constantly tell a teen to clean their room-- that functioning is not quite there yet. Well I have to admit I have felt very much like Will's mother at times-Will are you doing this, Will can you do this, etc. You'll be happy to know that I am less and less "motherly" all the time. I'll name some specific things he has done in the last couple weeks without my direct prompting. Will worked in my parents yard for hours on end getting it ready for my sister's wedding, he also helped move his sister up to her fiances home in time for her wedding this past Friday. Thursday he emptied out our storage closets to prepare to build shelves in there this next week. The past two weeks has applied for about 15 jobs, and he bought two new, very expensive ;) internal medicine books and has studied them frequently. He continues to write in his journal and read his scriptures everyday, again without prompting.

I hope Will's initiative the past few weeks will continue-- in the meantime we are calling June the month of "Detail." As a doctor you have to be very into detail so we're working on bringing this up to par. Will is being tasked each week with things that take a lot of planning and detail-- this week is building shelves in our storage unit on our balcony, he has never done this before but I'm sure he'll do fine. We'll post pictures of Will's projects in the coming weeks.

Last but not least Will's stamina is awesome-- we ran a sprint triathlon last week and Will came in a little after me, I'm a little better swimmer because of practice, else he would have beat me for sure. Will continues to be alert. He generally has around eight hours of sleep a night and only takes a couple of naps a week.

Above I've posted a picture from the triathlon and one from his sister's reception. We're doing great. I love Will with all of my heart. He is such a good man. One of Heavenly Father's choice sons. Keep reading and following the blog. We love your support and prayers.