Ms. Dubrava - Emily is looking forward to your Monday visit. She's very worried about school right now, so it's a great time for you to come and add your reassurances to ours. Thanks for offering rides to those who need them - perhaps you could contact the elusive Brendan directly?

Sigrid - Once again, you've hit the nail right on the head - Emily has left the time of "forever now" and is very worried about the uncertain future. While cards and notes on the blog certainly help, they are too conceptual for her right now. Emily would love to see you and Richard. She's always loved Richard as a teacher and a friend, and besides we all know that on many levels he does still count as a teenager.

Tanya - Craig Hospital is located at 3425 South Clarkson Street, Englewood. Emily is in room 215b in Craig West. Visitors are welcome any time after 4:00 p.m. Monday - Friday (although it's unlikely Hannah will be there in the evenings), or anytime on the weekends. Since we can now go home during the day on the weekends, it's always better to call first to make sure we're there. The phone number for Craig is (303) 789-8405, if you ask for the 2West nurses station they'll be able to tell you if we're there or when we're expected back.

I've said it before and I want to be sure folks know that I mean it - you're very welcome to visit Emily when we're home on the weekend. Everyone knows how to get hold of us and we're in the phone book. Emily gets pretty sick of the hospital these days, so she likes to come home on the weekends but please, please visit.

Tomorrow Ken will probably head home with Emily around 10:00 a.m. and we'll head back to the hospital after dinner.

We continue to struggle with the ankle. Her regular PT has been out of town for the last few days, so we've spent a lot of time explaining where we are and why we're doing what we're doing. It was really painful tonight, but some time with it elevated and some pain meds eventually helped. We have our long-awaited orthopedic consult on Monday afternoon. Emily had her third, and hopefully last, round of nerve block injections on Thursday afternoon. This time they worked on her shoulder - pec, scap and lat. The injections are incredibly painful, but already today she was putting weight on that shoulder during PT.

In speech she continues to work on her voice, memory and speed of processing. On Wednesday her ST had her doing an exercise that made her use her "working memory" (that's the one Barb doesn't have any more!). Katie was amazed at how quickly she was completing the problems. Getting that working memory going is a big step.

Special thanks to Julie for walking to the hospital almost every weekend - Em loves seeing you and we're always sorry when we've missed you. We'd love to have you visit Em at home and we're happy to give you a ride. Laura, Sandy and Big Sand thanks for visiting last week - you've been great and Em loves "froggy;" I didn't know how much we'd missed you guys till all of this happened. Hendo - you've been with us through it all and means a lot to all of us and Emily really loves seeing you. She asks a lot about the accident these days and she's always so relieved when I remind her you were with her. Finally, Sam and family - we understand completely why you waited and tonight's visit really cheered her up; she hadn't smiled that much all day. She'd love to see you again - and Wii wants to play.