PUTNEY!

WE ARE HERE! Finally, after so long waiting, we are here. Dad got moved to Putney hospital - The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability on the 16th April 2012. He has been doing so well. After a few weeks there however he was taken to Kingston hospital having an acute infection however he recovered quickly.

Since moving to Putney, dad has improved faster than we ever thought he would. He is now nodding and shaking his head which has majorly improved communication and smiling. For the first time in what feels like years we've heard him laugh too. We've also seen movement in his foot. To some people this might not seem so big, but to us it's everything.
 A few weeks ago me, my sister and 2 beautiful nieces went to sit with dad in one of his eye gaze session. The eye gaze is a system that tracks the movement of the eye to allow the user to control a computer simply with eye movement. It's amazing stuff. Dad decided to show off during the session. The nurses that were in with us were showing us how it works and asked us to ask dad a question so he could use the eye gaze to spell out the answer. We asked dad what airline did granddad work for. His reply was pan america airlines worldwide. Pan-am would have worked perfectly fine too :P he also spelt out our granddads name.

Last week when I went in to see him hoping to get there for another eye gaze session, dad was having a small session with one of the speech therapists working with dad on mouth exercises. He had to open, close, smile, pucker and try move his tongue. Apparently he had been practicing a lot. He really wants to start eating and drinking proper now. After he was done with the exercises he was given teaspoons of lemonade, which he took 4 full teaspoons of and choked only once.

Well done dad, we're proud of you! <3