The good news is that this is my last post. I say good news because it means Taylor is moving along so well that a site dedicated to her recovery seems out of place. Kit and Taylor may still make a post every now and then, but this is MY last post. Indeed, the biggest challenge now for her, and everyone else, is to move past what I call “Brain Injury Taylor” and back to just plain “Taylor.” For sure, she has a long way to go. She works very, very hard to relearn her ADLs (Activities of Daily Living), but she will definitely get there; it is just a matter of perseverance.
Of course, it is not easy, and I don’t want to diminish the hard work Taylor is still doing. To relearn how to put on a T-shirt, Taylor worked every day for about 30 minutes for three months. Struggling for thirty minutes only to have it end in total frustration again and again every day for three months. But at the end, she got it, and every day she learns a little bit more, gets a little bit faster, and sees a little better on her way back to a total recovery.
Total recovery seems inevitable now, but that was not always the case. For sure, there were some dark days that made this idea seem ludicrous. When we first went to Craig Hospital, they assembled a team and had a meeting with us and asked what we were expecting. I wasn’t prepared to answer this question and just blurted out “Total Recovery.” They were all too professional to roll their eyes, but I’m sure they were thinking this idea was a little nuts. Then there was the time at MGH in Boston where one of Taylor’s friends was in the room, Taylor was unconscious and had been for several weeks, and I was saying to her, as I often did, that she was going to come “all the way back.” This made the friend sad. Like all of Taylor’s classmates, he was too smart and logical to buy into such a fantasy. Nowadays, this idea gels more with logic, and it’s a lot easier to hold this view, but I always knew it would happen.
Here is a new video of Taylor walking:
Although it is hard for those that see her everyday to notice the improvements she is making, a look at a prior video (http://taylorisperfect.org/?p=658) reveals a startling difference.