She "Gets It"

Visiting Bettie as often as I do, it is easy for me to miss the little improvements that are going on all the time. But for visitors who see her after a week or more absence the changes are profound. This was the case when old friends Ruth and Rich Medved saw her today. I arrived at 11:30 a.m. and found them still there, along with Dr. Sultana who was checking her progress, as he does each day.

Both the Medveds and Dr. Sultana were very impressed with her progress. Her right arm is moving further and more often for instance, and there are improvements in comprehension. At least we think so. This is the area that I am most concerned with. Dealing with whatever physical impairment might linger after her recovery is easily manageable compared to dealing with impaired comprehension.

She is so pleasant and trying so hard to please, that it is easy to just assume that she understands everything you say. But you will get a "Yes" response to just about anything that you ask if you ask it in an upbeat inflection and with a smile: "Today we're going to hold up the Brinks truck and we wonder if you'd like to help?" She'll give you a pleasant nod and say "Yes."

On the other hand, there are a number of indications that she "gets it". I think she is understanding key words in a communication and doing her best to respond to those. Words like "dressed" and "clothes" she responds to.

She likes to pick out what to wear from several choices and looks at her closet when you mention those words. While doing that yesterday, she kept repeating the word "right" when I was offering her the different things in her closet. She rejected every item in the closet with the comment: "No, right". Finally I noticed the pants and top that were not in the closet but on a shelf on the right side of it. That was what she wanted.

I was with her for both lunch and dinner, returning home for a few hours in between. She is eating better that when she first arrived here.

I left her by 6 o'clock because each Wednesday evening from 7 to 10 p.m. is the Northwest Sound chorus rehearsal. Though Bettie's stroke prevented me from traveling with my chorus brothers to compete for the international championship in Anaheim last week, she is stable enough now for me to attend weekly rehearsal.

It was good to be with the chorus again and to celebrate their inauguration officially into the category of "A" choruses. (Scoring over 80 in a competition constitutes the "A" category.) Our score of 81.2 placed us a respectable 19th out of 28, and one place ahead of our Evergreen District nemesis: the "Salem Senataires".

(In the Barbershop Harmony Society, the "Evergreen District" constitutes: Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Western Montana.) It's kinda cool to be the best of our genre in that large an area.

As you can imagine, singing is good therapy for whatever ails you ... it sure helps me. Come to think of it, it seemed to have helped Bettie too.