Santa

Adam and I took Cohen to see Santa a couple of weeks ago.  It was an experience much like last year where the second we started walking toward Santa, Cohen started screaming.  We were eventually able to get Cohen to sit next to Santa, not on his lap and probably not even touching him, with me sitting off to the side of Santa just out of the way of the camera.  This is the wonderful picture that came of our Santa experience ;)

Prosopagnosia

What is this you ask?  This is the term for facial blindness, one of the agnosia's with which Adam has been diagnosed.  Here is a short video clip from this evenings CBS news about facial blindness:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7153979n&tag=related;photovideo

This may explain some of the questions people have been asking about what Adam "sees" when he looks at peoples faces.  It is hard for me to understand as well and I am with him on a daily basis so I know it is hard to comprehend for those who only see Adam occasionally or who may not even know him at all.

There are also a couple of stories about injured Marines at Walter Reed and NNMC (Bethesda) in the same CBS evening news show which Adam and me found interesting.

The Holiday Season

We have had a great holiday season so far this year!  We spent Thanksgiving in Clarksville since we had just been out of town the two weekends prior and were tired of traveling  We celebrated Thanksgiving with some families from Adam's old unit and had a great time!

It has been great being able to decorate our own house this year and Cohen LOVES the Christmas trees and lights.  I put up a small tree in his room and two trees in the first floor of our house.  The lights on the trees always have to be on or else he is trying to plug them in himself which is scary!  He walks around the house pointing to the trees saying "tree, lights, tree lights" all day.  So cute!  The challenge is keeping the ornaments on the trees!!

My cousin, Lorra, and her husband, Ben, came up this past weekend to visit.  Lorra is more like my sister than my cousin since we grew up together, are close in age and are both only children.  We had a great time with them and they really enjoyed spending time with Cohen.  We tried to get them to take some family pictures of us for Christmas cards and this is what we came up with:

Needless to say, Cohen was not very cooperative and Cooper was not much better!  I think we will have to come up with plan B for Christmas card pictures.

Here is a decent picture of Cohen from a Christmas party at the Warrior Transition Unit last week.  Cohen was terrified of Santa and started screaming when we got within ten feet of Santa so I had to be in the picture too.

Other than getting ready for the holidays, Adam is finishing up with the TBI program here at Ft Campbell.  His 10-12 week program is coming to an end right before Christmas.  I do not know if they will continue his therapy after the holidays or if this will be it for therapy for now.  Adam is ready for the medical board process to get started so that he can figure out what he wants to do next in life and get that going as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  Our family has so much to be thankful this year, I don't even know where to start.  First of all I am thankful that Adam is happy, healthy and doing amazingly well!  He has come so far since last Thanksgiving, I could not have even dreamed of the progress he has made.  We are also so thankful for our wonderful family, friends and all of the blessings the good Lord has bestowed upon us this past year. 

We took a trip to see Adam's brother and his family this past weekend before they move to Ft Hood, TX.  We had a great time visiting with them and celebrating their daughter's 4th birthday.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Wyatt, Cohen's cousin, and Cohen

Dan, Adam's brother, and Adam

Hannah, the birthday girl, and Tracy, Adam's sister-in-law

Passing

My family had a sad week last week with the passing of my grandfather, or as we call him, "Pop".  He is my mom's father and died last week at the age of 92.  We had been losing him for a while and he was not the same Pop that avidly fished, played golf, camped and gardened that I grew up with but it was still a very difficult loss for everyone.  He was a kind and wonderful man and will be greatly missed by many!  Adam, Cohen and I went to Atlanta for the services and were able to spend some time with my family which was nice; although, not under the circumstances.  Here is a picture of us with Pop that was taken this past Spring.

Ear tubes

Cohen had surgery for ear tubes this morning and did great!!  He has been getting ear infections for the past 10 months or so every time he gets a cold so hopefully this will help.  The surgery is literally a 10-15 minute procedure and Adam and me barely had enough time to sit down and drink our coffee before they called us back to post-op.  Cohen is running around the house now like nothing happened!  Here are a few pictures I took from my phone in pre-op.

Happy Halloween

Cohen was such a cute little puppy for Halloween this year!  We didn't take him trick-or-treating, he doesn't even know what candy is yet and I am hoping to keep it that way for as long as I can!  He seemed a little confused though when people kept coming to our door.  He would run to the door when the doorbell rang, then just stare at the children, not say anything, watch them through the glass as they left then finally say "bye bye".  He was probably wondering why no one ever came inside the house!

Fall Fun in KY!!

New Location for Stead Family updates!

So I have decided that I am now going to post all of Adam's and our family's updates on this blog instead of CaringBridge. CaringBridge is a great site for medical updates but this will allow me to post more pictures with better quality and even some videos!

Sorry, again, that it has been so long since the last update but we are staying very busy! Adam's therapy is going well and he is almost halfway through the 10-12 week TBI program at Ft Campbell. He continues to practice on the driving simulator which he is improving a lot. His reaction time is getting faster and he is able to recognize almost all of the road signs in the appropriate time frame. No accidents in the simulator! Adam did go to the Commissary with the OT with a list of items to search for (along with pictures and their locations in the store). He was able to find all of the items without difficulty or help. This was pretty good for him since visual processing is one of his main deficits and the grocery store is very overwhelming and visually overstimulating. Other than that, nothing too exciting going on in therapy, just the normal OT, PT and Speech therapy.

We have had some fun trips this month. We went to Goldrush a couple of weekends ago, a festival at the college where Adam went to school. We had a great time and Adam was able to visit with some friends he has not seen since early in his injury and some since before his injury. We also had a great time with some of my lifelong friends at an engagement party.

Last weekend we went Lexington for the UGA/UK game and visited with my family's great, great friends. We went to the horse races on Friday and the football on Saturday. Luckily the Grandmother's volunteered to babysit so us "kids" or parents could go to the races and the game! We did take Cohen tailgating; he had a great time but it was not so much fun for us since he was running all over the place!!