Reach Out And Touch Someone

Hi everyone! Patti and I are enjoying a relaxing Sunday morning watching NFL playoffs, drinking Starbucks coffee (sometimes known as "fourbucks" coffee), "yakking" on the phone, and doing phonics flash cards.

Yesterday Patti did something completely new and significant. We were in Mardel's, a Christian book and office supply store looking for puzzles. In the middle of a cellphone conversation with our daughter Paige, holding the phone in her good left hand, she spied something she wanted to look at and without thinking about it tried to reach out with Charlotte and grab it! She didn't get very far, but just the natural effort to use the hand that has been disabled is a huge mental step and a sign of impending progress!

Then this morning I got an e-mail from one of our Houston friends, Laurel Taylor, with a great story and idea about how to get Charlotte back in the game and, after yesterday, was soooo appropriate. So I just had to share this with all of Patti's friends:

Mike, Here is my idea..............

One of my favorite memories of the Patti Cakes is this: we were in a jr league provisional class and there were many classes, mostly boring(is mostly a word?) These classes were verrrrry boring, trust me on this. Patti Cakes sat in one of the front rows..........Her contribution to the boring meetings was to extend the boredom........... The little speaker of boringness would, at the end of the meeting, ask if anyone had a question...............invariably........... up would go Patti's hand ..........oh maybe 5 or 6 times............the rest of us would silenty groan.........

So here is the plan..........take the girlfriend to a really boring town meeting..........tie Ralph(my name for her left hand) down and leave Charlotte free..............The boring speaker at the boring town meeting will ask if there are any questions..................Charlotte will shoot up to ask a question that no one in the whole room wants an answer to................It is a great plan don't you think? Maybe this plan should go into the medical archives.......................

Call me when you set this thing up...............I will be there to witness the reactivation of Charlotte..........................regards..........Laurel

We laughed ourselves to tears over this one!

Forever in Him,

Mike