Day 80 – Grayson’s Condition

Dear family and friends

Regina and I had a nice chat with Grayson on the phone tonight. He was excited to hear that we would be coming to visit him this weekend, and staying over until Monday to have a conference with the staff at the center. He told me much about the things he has been doing over the past few days. As you might expect, Grayson was close, but he doesn't always get the facts straight. The staff filled in the blanks and corrected the sequence after Grayson went to bed at 8:30.

Yesterday there was a town hall meeting of the patients in the residential village hosted by the head of the residential program. There was a lot of conversation about the outings and free time activity. Grayson wanted to give his input and rose to speak. As I mentioned yesterday, now when he is in a crowd he tends to whisper. Well, because he was whispering, the room got very, very quiet so they could hear what Grayson had to say. He stopped, and said to his care giver beside him, "They are all looking at me!" She explained that they wanted his input, and with that, he spoke out. He suggested more outing options that were not sport related, and perhaps some music outings. He was thanked for his input by the host. BTW – his favorite part of the meeting was the snacks!

Grayson is doing well with his daily checklist. When it is explained to him that a task is on his checklist, he gets it done right away, after he looks at the list just to be sure. Yesterday was laundry day, and laundry he did. When his care giver asked him why he separated his sheets from his sweat pants for laundry loads, he said, "Those are green, and these are gray." While it would not have been a problem here, he has never forgotten the time he put a new (red) USC t-shirt in with his whites. The lesson learned years ago – never mix colors!

The more I talk to the staff, and to Grayson, the more I know that the Lord led us to the right place. He even made us sweat a bit before we got permission 5 hours before we arrived! But arrive we did, and after a bit more than a week, I see good things happening here daily.

Pax!

Brant