Jan 24 12:26 p.m.

Thank you Pattersons for your comments. :)

Jen, Laura, and Lynn I'll e-mail you about your questions.

Thank you so much to our Allstate Ins. agent, Lisa Eshleman, and her asst., Becky! After taking care of all the issues with the theft of Levi's radio, they sent us a gift card and said we should go out to dinner when Levi felt well enough. How sweet they are! I'm not sure Levi felt well enough, but we took Hillary to Marie Callendar's for her birthday. The food was really good and the waiter was so cute he made Emily forget for a second what she was going to order! Ali and Jordan came and we had fun. :)

Levi is looking into doing some volunteer work for the church. We're thinking maybe D.I. or the pasta plant or something. The bishop spoke to them and gave Levi some papers I haven't looked at yet. We are hoping he can help in the office to continue to stimulate the frontal lobe functions.

He went to the eye doctor this past week. The doctor was disappointed. He thought the alignment issue would be better by now. Levi said it was better for about a week then for the last two weeks it's been bad again. The dr. said that would make sense if Levi had been really sick or had taken another bad fall but since neither is true he wants to wait a little longer until there is no change at all for a couple of weeks. At that point he will either do surgery or make some prism glasses that will correct the problem.

More fun for Morgan. She went through emotional agony trying out for the basketball team at school. We got her to school by 6 a.m. to try out and she made the first cut! Then she was more nervous to have to play against the 9th graders, ooooh! There were a lot of girls trying out. We got her to school again at 6 a.m. for the final cut. They weren't supposed to find out until the next day but the announcement was made over the intercom during 4th period. The surprise announcement was almost dreaded, the suspense nearly unbearable! Her friends were all patting her on the head and shoulders saying, "you'll make it. It's o.k. don't worry". And they listened...."someone, someone, someone, Morgan Allen". They couldn't hear who else made it as the entire classroom erupted in cheers! YEAH!!! About 1/2 the practices will be at 6 a.m. yeah! We are really proud of her! She went to talk to her director after school to see if it was going to interfere with any of the rehearsals for the play. Her director said that her coach had already checked on that and everything should be fine. Also she (the director) said she had known since that morning that Morgan had made it but she couldn't tell her. :)

David has been doing much better on his assignments so we went to an outing with UTVA at the Classic Fun Center on Friday. Just as we were getting ready to leave a lady on the skate floor fell. I got up to help her but someone got there first. The lady helping the fallen one yelled," call an ambulance!" David ran to the counter to tell the mgr. who came to see what had happened. He called 911. I still couldn't tell what was wrong until another lady said,"look at her ankle". Her knee was raised and pointing up and to the left. Her foot was pointing behind her. I keep seeing it in my mind. You would think it wouldn't bother me so much at this point but it really does. I was joking with David on the way there that he better not break anything or I would have to tear it off and beat him with it! He thought that was terribly funny. We don't think so anymore.

I should have written that before the basketball so I could close on a happy note!
Levi and I are going grocery shopping now so ttfn and everyone take care and be careful!

Jan. 14 6 p.m.

Let's see.. what's been happening..? Well, therapy as always. Still, forms, forms, forms. And thank goodness for them! Morgan (our youngest daughter) got a part in the Jr High play. I can't say yet what part until she can first tell Alison! It's the end of a semester and there is no school Friday or Monday. Yeah!! I have a pres. mtg. in less than an hour. I joined Facebook. Can't really figure it out. Scheduled my dr. appt for the 28th. I will probably have surgery on Feb. 6th. Hillary will turn 18 in one week! So, here we go, pressing on toward birthday, prom, and graduation. And hopefully find a decent used car. Wow we will actually be looking for 3 in the next 18 months! Levi will want his back in a few months so I'll need my van back (actually it needs to be replaced so that's 4) and Hillary, Emily, and Morgan will all be going different directions to school and work. I think I feel ill. Obviously we will need to continue to be masters of juggling! :) Maybe I won't need a car, I'll sit at home going quietly(or not so quietly) insane!

Levi got the news he has been dreading since he came home. Cookietree has to move on and they have replaced him. When he is ready to go back to work they will see if they have anything open. In the meantime, we will start paying the full amt. of our insurance premium beginning in Feb. Thank goodness, again, that we can as I am having surgery, and we are still dealing with getting an evaluation and treatment for poss AD/HD, keratoconus , and a possible ortho issue. (it's looking like not so quietly insane!) lol

I need to get ready for my meeting so ttfn.

P.S. Morgan just spoke to Ali. So I can tell you she will be the wicked witch in a version of The Wizard of OZ! YEAH!

Jan. 7 11:31 a.m.

Wow! Time can really fly when your busy. We made it through the holidays and enjoyed them. The children got some really cool things for Christmas and used/played with them for several days before they became tools of punishment/bribery.

We have been to a few more appts. for Levi. He had a(n) x-ray of his back done at the request of Dr. Reichman's PA. Then we went to get another CAT scan of his brain once the approval came through. A couple of days ago we went for a swallow test and yesterday we saw Dr. Reyser (rehab dr.) Levi also spent a couple of hours at Cookietree to see how much he could remember and accomplish.

Levi passed his swallow test! No more dietary restrictions. YEAH! Dr. Reyser said his back looks good in the x-ray. I was really hoping for that since he had a couple of falls. :( Dr. Reyser also pulled up the CAT scan and showed it to Levi and spoke very candidly about the damage.

Levi has been very low since his visit to Cookietree. I think it was difficult to realize some limitations. He has been working with his speech therapist this morning on work related topics (finally). I think up 'till now the focus was on getting back to a regular diet. With that accomplished they can focus on the work place issues. In retrospect, we could have dealt with the diet longer and focused on the work issues earlier. 20/20 hindsight.

Dr. Reyser felt the work place therapy would be a great benefit to Levi's continued improvement. He also said that the PT needs to get more aggressive with Levi's elbow and shoulder. Miete, the case manager from Rehab w/o Walls, said that means the PT can start living up to her title, Pain and Torture, or Pain Terrorist!

Levi had another x-ray of his elbow last night after the visit with Dr. Reyser and in about a month Dr. Reyser will evaluate the progress of the therapy and do an EMG on the elbow and shoulder. We have a follow-up with Dr. Cook (eyes) coming up this month and one with Dr. Reichman in February. Oh, I hope I didn't make the appt. with Dr. Reyser on the same day. I'll need to check on that.

Levi looks like some sort of celeb. when he goes to his appts. He has quite the entourage. There were four of us accompanying him last night! Two from Rehab w/o Walls, one from Worker's Comp, and me. He should wear sunglasses and a hat and turn his collar up to really look incognito. Maybe we all should! lol

Well, the speech therapist just left and it is lunchtime. I'm still not dressed yet! I've been going through the papers collecting all the coupons for grocery shopping I need to do today. The children are going to Temple Square tonight and I have a presidency mtg. so I guess I need to get moving!
TTFN