Saturday Night at the Movies

It's 8:00 on Saturday night, and we're settled in around Tim's laptop watching Fever Pitch. We were joking with Ed, one of Tim's favorite nurses (and resident barber) that we'd like a bucket of popcorn. Ha Ha. Five minutes later, Ed was back with a bag of hot buttered corn for us. That's the kind of staff that Tim is benefiting from.

We had a nice evening getting caught up. He enjoyed the poster sized card from Berkshire West folks and showed us a neat pop up card from Jackie and Earl featuring a VW (a cousin of Audi, according to Earl). Jackie always has the best cards. I wonder where she gets them? Then we went down to the cafeteria where Tim manhandled his hot dog dinner. That was part of him showing off his new dexterity. He was actually wiggling the fingers on his left hand and showed us a new move with his thumb. Nice ............ Then he pointed out his left leg - he moved it up and down, lifting his heel off the foot rest. It was a beautiful thing.

After chatting for a bit, we headed up to his room to take a look at the "Homecoming" slide show Lisa created for Tim. It was wonderful for all of us to re-live last Sunday - what an outpouring of love and support. Better than that, though was watching Tim take the CD out of the case, insert it in the laptop, save the image to his hard drive and then play the show using his remote. The man is dextrous alright!

Editors note: Ed has just returned to Tim's room with bottled water for each of us.
Then it was down to the patio for a nice walk and talk along the river. The weather did a 180 on us while we were inside turning from hot, still and muggy to breezy and comfortable. Now were all enjoying this movie, even this Yankee fan, and looking forward to tomorrow.

Web stats!

Who knows what web stats mean? You can massage them to say what you want, I suppose, but here they are, covering a period of twenty days. If you know what they mean, enjoy. If not make up your own analysis!

1,964 Visits
3,437 Pageviews
1.75 Pages/Visit
73.93% Bounce Rate
00:13:46 Avg. Time on Site
28.67% % New Visits
563 Visitors

Walkin' the dog

We had a couple of conversations with Tim today and a voice mail from Uncle John, and there's a bunch o' stuff going on. First of all, the big news is that Tim's room mate Brendan went home today. It's about a week earlier than we expected and we're happy for him and his family. But, it's kind of wierd. It's a fairly intense relationship when two people with spinal cord injuries share a room - family and friends come and go, you get to know folks and share concerns and achievements, and then boom! - one room mate is gone. We'll miss him and his parents, whom we had a very nice relationship with. Now, I guess we'll wait and see who's next.

Friday's are generally visitor-free until John gets home for work and comes down with Noir. This evening, they went for a walk down along the river into the Nashua Street Park, with Tim holding the leash, and being in control, according to John. Earlier in the day, Tim had told me that he was feeling more and more control in the fingers of his left hand, specifically the pointer and little fingers. He is actively online now, but mostly reading only until Thursday when the ATEC folks come by to train him on the voice recognition. He is typing occassionally with one finger on the left hand and experimenting with the back of his right thumb. He welcomes emails and messages, but says "don't expect a reply right away!"

On the home front, Amy met with the rep from Patriot Elevator to discuss where one our our home's new features will best fit. For Tim, it will be just like a luxury penthouse apartment - the elevator will open right into his bedroom. Aunt Katie brought by a poster sized card from the folks at Berkshire West, along with some goodies for the road. Amy and I enjoyed a nice meal of Chicken Stew with wild rice from friends Andy and Jeff. Thank you! I must say that we are eating well!

When we spoke with Tim to say good night, he sounded tired. I think he's looking forward to the lighter weekend schedule. On Sunday, we'll welcome back a sunburned Jancy after a week or so at Hermit Island. We are looking forward to being together again.

Thirsty Thursday

Amy and I got a chance to do a little socializing this evening, which was nice - getting together with some friends in Lenox. A very nice evening outdoors, which we haven't had much time to do this summer.

Before we headed over the hill, we spoke with Tim. He had a decent day - he put in 40 minutes on the Locomat, which is his longest stint to date and felt good about that. He used the Bioness on his left arm/hand and feels more and more dexterity coming back into that hand. He worked with ATEC on setting his laptop up - but they needed an access code for the voice recognition software. For some reason, it wasn't in the packaging. I looked around at home and found it on the receipt that was emailed to me. Later this evening, he let us know that it worked and tomorrow he plans to get some more training. That's good, because the one finger typing thing is very tiring.

Tim had his usual Thursday visit with Grandma and Grandpa. Later he enjoyed a surprise visit from Tyler. After a nice dinner from Katie K, we had a nice chat, and he is tired and heading off to sleep. He did let me know that he had visites this Blog and he thought I was doing OK and can keep it up. Whew.

We hate being away from Tim and miss him terribly when we are, but are so grateful for the staff and our friends and family who make the time to visit.

Amy and I are now going to review some plans for modifications to our home. Some real late night fun!

41 days and 41 nights offline - the draught is over!

Tim is online now, although his access is still pretty limited. The O'Malley's dropped off the Mac today, and with the help of Cara, one of his therapists, he got it set up. There was not enough time to set up the voice recognition software, but Tim can do some minor and slow navigation using one finger typing and the oversized trackball (mouse). I believe that he received and responded to an IM, but it wasn't really "I." So, wait until you read it here, or hear from him, that he's ready to communicate. What will that mean to my time as the keeper of Tim's Blog? He hasn't seen most of my postings, and I'm not sure how he'll want me to continue. We'll see!

Reports from the floor include time spent on the FES Bike this morning. He also ate chocolate pudding with a normal spoon, a result of increased control of his left hand. After a wheel chair clinic at lunchtime, Tim has a pretty good idea of the fetures he wants for his manual ride. He also reported to me that he had a great time last night on the Duck Tour and that he thought the guide was great.

Mail call included yet another nice card from Aunt Merilyn and one from former English teacher Mrs. Barrett. The new pastor of our church, Shawn Bracebridge stopped in to spend some time with Tim after visiting some friends in the area and gave Amy a ride home to West Stockbridge.

No new images for today, but Amy brought back a few from last night's tour, which I will strategically place elsewhere on the site.

All Aboard the Hemenway Hannah!

What a great night aboard the Hemenway Hannah Duck Tour boat! Our guide was lots of fun...he loved that we were a boat-load of Red Sox fans and didn't hesitate to pick on the Yankees every chance he had (too bad Brian wasn't aboard)! Did you know that the USS Constitution aims it's cannons at cars with NY plates crossing the bridge as it unloads every night?!?!?! And the view of the Boston skyline at dusk from the Charles River was just beautiful. So glad Amy & Tim found the courage to come along on this adventure! Thanks to the O'Mearas for sharing this with all of us!
pattyO

Tim's friends

Well, Tim, these are the rest of the ones that came out okay. We switched over to Lisa Baldwin's camera, which is much better than mine, so you will see many more photos from the CD she gave your Dad. I hope that reentry at Spaulding went okay for you.

Phoebe

A few more photos

I am getting the knack for this, so here go a few more. The first two are from Chris's and my visit to Boston.

Love to you again,
Phoebe

Tim on the go

Here are some photos from Tim's visit to West Stockbridge. It was so great to see you out here, Tim. Everyone was inspired by how much progress you have made and by your enormous courage. As well as just by who you are and how much fun you are. I hope my pictures come through okay.

Lots of love to you, Tim, from your Aunt Phoebe and from all of us in West Stockbridge.

Make Way for Duck Tours

Locomat. Bioness. Manual Chair all day long. Class on pressure management (what?). Blah Blah Blah.

At 6:30, Tim joined Amy and a bunch of adults and kids from Bourne, Holliston, Milton and Medfield for a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour. Actually 2.5. These folks are pals of Amy's and mine from back in the "day," when were the toast of Newbury Street. They're great friends and have made Tim a part of their lives as good friends do. Amy said that it was a blast - good company, funny driver, the time flew by. And now, there are 28 more "I love Tim Buttteworth" bands in circulation. Thanks guys. Tomorrow, I'll get Tim's comments and post them with some images that Amy will bring home with her.

On my end, Conorooman stopped by to pick up Tim's new voice activated Mac with some special hardware to enable him to get himself connected to the world without using Amy and me as a go between. Conor is off to the Band Camp of a lifetime tomorrow, as a member of the Boston College marching band. Tommy Lee has nothing on Conor. Thanks O'Malley's for making the delivery

In closing, I've located the images from Sunday's homecoming, and should receive them on a disc tomorrow or Thursday and will post then.

The Tone is ready to Blog!

Hi Tim

I hope you had a great home coming. We wanna see more pictures! Your car looks pretty comfortable. We're just writing to let you know that your Uncle Tony is ready to blog! I've shown him how to do it and now I have to demonstrate to him how to add a photo. Here is a photo of the boys blackberry picking on the heath. That was about the only day it wasn't raining this summer. Tony has been poking through Schott's Almanac and has come up with some interesting facts: did you know that in the year you were born Teenage Mutant Turtles were the Toy of the Year? When you were ten years old it was Furbys then Teksta (whatever that is - shows you how old I am). Upon reading further, we've discovered that there really are Labradoodles in this world which were first bred in Australia (but not recognised by the English Kennel Club, certainly not!) as assistance dogs for people with severe allergies since their coats do not moult. Not to be outdone, the Americans are now breeding the Goldendoodle. As your young cousin Allott would say: fun-knee.

We're coming to see you soon and just can't wait! Meantime we are all sending you lots and lots of love on yet another dark and rainy day at the height of summer in Engerland. (Did you know it's so cold and rainy that the UK news presenters are wearing woolen winter coats with the collars up when they stand outside to report? It's surreal. Uggh)

Tim!!! I am so absolutely gutted that I didn't get to see you yesterday. I'm in Ohio already and missed you by a day, which was upsetting but Alena and Elyse both said you look great and seem to be doing well, so that was good news. Im writing this from a mac which I have no idea how to navigate and I know you would be making snide comments if you saw my technique, hahah. Anyway I hope you're doing really well and you have come so far...It has been amazing to hear of your progress and I only wish I could have been there to see you but next time man. Good luck, keep owning and stay strong..Jess

PS I want a bracelet!

Richmond Experiences Temporary Population Dip

The sad thing is, yesterday really kicked my butt. So, I slept in a bit to try to head off a cold I felt coming on, and I think I was successful. Amy pulled the early shift with Tim and after he went off to his 9AM PT classes, she came back to the apartment to make sure I didn't over-do the sleep. Thanks.

Anyway, by the time we ambled back to the hospital, who did we see arriving, but the catering Baldwins of Richmond, returning from their vacation in Little Compton. As always, we had a nice visit with them, over lunch on the patio (which they brought in from a specialty foods caterer in Providence). Nigel met Tim's therapists, enjoyed the draw bridge and helped Tim by filling his CamelBak. Tessa was just as cute as a button. She's this big (!) now.

Tim, it seems, was also pretty tired as he nodded off for a nap during the visit and then was too tired to attend his OT session. Rachel did let us know that she was excited by the new movement in Tim's left hand.

After Spinal Cord Injury Education Class, we enjoyed another visit from Richmonders. Stefan and Matt were in town to take a look at some colleges and stopped by before heading back. We let Tim have some time alone with them, and that resulted in a real smile fest. Amy and I enjoyed our time with Regina. I took off around 6, and learned that Tim was ready for bed early. Now, I'm back at my kitchen table in front of an open window. Has anyone seen August? Good lord!

The Missing Will Be Accounted For --

It was great seeing you today, but once again you put me on the spot. Now I'm going to have to confront those technological advances to meet your demands. You said "Next time I see a Foose It better be Jake". Well with him already out in Colorado I'm going to have to get a movie clip for you for that to happen. So I pulled out my super 8 movie camera(circa 1964) and go to the Film store. They told me to go the Washington DC and see the curator of the Smithsonian museum. I'm, pretty sure I heard them laughing when I left, (I never hear that when I leave - it is usually just a sigh - or "at last" - now laughing - that would be rude!!) Next step -Learn how to take a film clip with my digital camera. Well I'm posting on your blog sooooo- maybe I can pull this film clip stuff off??? We will be out in Colorado to get Jake settled in, in 2 days. He actually flew out a week ago for his first class. While out there I'll 'Get The Goods' and you will see Jake Foose - Video Clip to follow!!! (This Old Dog, New Trick Thing - is starting to become Old Hat - by the way at my age we try to avoid the word ooo l d).

All Joking aside - Great Seeing you and how Great You are doing. We will be back to you with the clip.

Steve F

Go, Tim!

Hi Tim,
It was great to see you today and witness firsthand your amazing progress and spirit! I was especially impressed by your command of that manual chair...I know that is no easy task. You are loved by many people and we are rooting for you. Jake would have been there today if he could have. I do know he will be calling on you for your many talents...he has always said, "Tim and me, we make a great team because I can come up with these crazy ideas and Tim can make them work!" You're in our hearts, Tim. Keep up the good work. Jan

Home Sweet Home

I'm keeping my blog post today short and sweet, and let others make their own posts to cover the day.

We got to Spaulding at 7:30, and were on the road by 8:30 or so. An uneventful ride got us home before 11, and Tim was able to go into the house through the front door and out the back (that was a tight fit) to spend some time with Sambone before we headed down the the club.

What a day it was! Thanks to everyone who made it down there and thanks to those who sent messages instead.