Merry Christmas!

James came home for five days over Christmas.  He is sure happy to be home.  The day that we were leaving to go over and visit with James and bring him home to visit,  we had an amazing hamper delivered!  What a surprise!  Everything for Christmas dinner plus other food items,  plus gifts and stockings for us all! Our tree has never been so full!  It was the first Christmas since I was a kid that I didn't know what was under the tree!  We brought James' girlfriend with us to Vancouver and she also spent Christmas Day with us.  James was so excited to see her!  The hotel that we stayed in while we visited with James had an IHOP restaurant attached to it.  The food was fabulous!  I think I have a new favorite restaurant!  Too bad we don't have one near home.  We visited with Grampa Cam and Cindy and Paige while in Vancouver.  We had lunch and dinner with them, went to a movie and visited at their home.  It was a great day.  We saw the movie, Frozen.  It was great.  James saw it once already,  but he was super excited to see it with the family!  We travelled home on Christmas Eve with James.  We saw a pod of small dark colored whales on the ferry trip.  We stopped in Nanaimo and had dinner and a visit with gramma Ann,  then drove home.  We spent Christmas Day with James girlfriend, Rae Ann, and Nana came for dinner.  We also went over the Nana's house to see her mini Christmas village that she puts up every year.  We ended the day by driving along candy cane lane to see all the Christmas lights!   James also spent almost the whole day without his chair!  He was 11 hours out of his chair!  He even used his walker to go In and out of Nana's house.  That was quite a bit of walking! We all got super spoiled for Christmas!  We are so blessed to have such awesome friends and family!  

James got a new roommate on Christmas Eve at the hospital.  He is a man in about his 50s.  I hope he is as nice as the last roommate.  I am a little nervous about it.  The experience with the first roommate James had was so horrible!  James' usual doctor is back from hollidays and I look forward to meeting with her next week.  James has been trialling a power chair lately.  He has practiced with it 3 or 4 times now.  He is doing very well with it.  He is very careful,  and I suspect it won't be long before he is able to use it on his own inside the building.  He really enjoys the independence it gives him.  I have been very concerned that he hasn't been using his walker much while he has been there.  It sounds like both his physiotherapist and his occupational therapist will be spending time walking with him with his walker now though.  James had a scope of his throat done again recientely.  They were wanting to see how his naso-pharyngeal port ( a flap that opens and closes between the mouth and nose). Is working and how he is handling eating and drinking.  The port did close nicely a couple of times while he was making an "A" sound,  but it wasn't consistent. I am hoping that it is a sign that it is starting to work.  That port being able to open and close when he speaks is very important to the intelligablility of his speech.  He was able to also swallow a teaspoon of regular fluid as well as he swallows a teaspoon of thickened fluid.  So that is also promising.  He is still a choking risk though,  and still needs to be monitored when eating.

James and I will be going back over to Vancouver on Sunday.  I will stay there until the following Sunday.  It will give me a chance to catch up with his therapists  and his doctor.