break

Home since Tuesday, after a nearly week-long stay in Evansville.

I worked with one of my clients from the summer on Tuesday and Thursday. I'm so excited because, just after the seven-year anniversary of his stroke (which was in November), he's suddenly interested in practicing his writing on his own all the time. His girlfriend said that before now he hadn't been able to do a lot of what he suddenly started writing down for me on Tuesday. He was writing the names of all his family members, many without any help from his girlfriend or myself. His penmanship has improved since August, and he seems much more patient all of a sudden, even though he's had to relearn to write with his non-writing hand (since his right side was paralyzed by the stroke). Not only patient, enthusiastic! After seeing how well he was doing, I was curious again about whether he could perhaps communicate by writing what he's thinking/what he wants to do, even though the doctor sent a message back to me this summer that he can't read (because of a medical condition called aphasia). I thought if he could recognize words on a page that he's been practicing himself, maybe flash cards would be useful to him for communication (a subject I've continually broached with his case manager, but unfortunately little has been done to explore the options). I wanted to see what all he could do, so I asked him to write things like his favorite food (his response: "apple") for me. We were spelling out other foods I know he likes, like chicken, and then I asked him to write cucumber because I know his girlfriend makes them with onion and vinegar and he likes them. But he wrote chicken again and laughed, even though I spelled cucumber aloud for him! This was really exciting because apparently he's always been one to joke constantly, which I can tell especially when we play board and card games together, but after the stroke he couldn't do that so much anymore since he became nonverbal. His sister-in-law, who he went to school with, said that's the thing they miss most about him: that before he was always making clever comments and poking fun, but that he can't joke around with them like that anymore. On Thursday, he made another joke: when he was supposed to be writing "soda," he wrote dope instead and looked at me and laughed! He was just in such a great mood, teasing me and really enthusiastic about showing me what he could do. I've heard before that people who've had strokes sometimes start improving a lot more all of a sudden after several years, but I don't know if that's true. I can't wait to tell my supervisor about it. I think I'm going to make flash cards for him myself while I'm home and have them laminated, because I've learned I can't depend on other people to always do those things. It's not my job, and I'm no speech therapist either (obviously)... I worry just a little that if he can use flash cards, he might stop practicing his writing as much because he can rely on them. But it seems the benefits outweigh the negatives right now, and it could really help him communicate to have flash cards. So I want to try and see if he can use them. I'm just so excited that he's showing such marked signs of improvement all of a sudden, and that his attitude was so positive. His girlfriend said she hadn't seen him so happy in a long, long time. I'll probably always remember that.

Spain and Morocco in eleven days. I haven't started packing yet, but I did remember to take my malaria pill this week. I don't even know where to begin, because apparently the weather on our travels could be anywhere between cool beach temperatures to snowy mountain cold.

I had a good finish to the semester, my first one in college without a single B. Next semester I have a great schedule (just like basically every other semester at DePauw thus far). I'll be taking Social Theory (for my sociology minor), plus two 390 topics courses in political science (International Political Economy with the amazing professor I just had for International Politics this fall, and Ethics, Politics, and Religion with a new-ish prof I've heard good things about). On top of that, I managed to get special permission to enroll in ceramics, an unexpected but exciting addition to my schedule! I can't wait to dig my fingers back into wet clay. I've really missed having that outlet.

Christmas in two days, I can't believe it. I think I'm done shopping... Tyler and I finished all of that up last night in Muncie. We also watched "Dewey Cox: Walk Hard" at the theater last night, which was no "Talladega Nights," but it was still really funny. Plus, any evening with Tyler is a good one. :)