I know it has been a while since we’ve posted, but we’ve been busy!  Taylor continues to attend classes through Santa Monica Community College (SMCC) 3 days a week and attends rehab at the Centre for Neuro Skills (CNS) 2 days a week.  She is currently working on her re-application packet to MIT.  In preparation for returning to MIT, she is taking an assistive technology class at SMCC where she is learning to use programs like Dragon Dictate and Kurzweil.  Dragon Dictate is a dictation program, which captures her spoken words and translates them to written text on the computer.  Kurzweil is a text-to-speech program that will read aloud text that is on her computer (from websites, word documents, etc.).  These 2 programs help her with the biggest challenges that she still faces since her injury:  fine motor skills and sight.  At CNS, she continues to get physical, occupational, and cognitive therapy.  She is also beginning to feel more comfortable doing things on her own, such as going to the local coffee and sandwich shop by herself.  Another change is that she cut her hair short, which is much easier to manage on her own.

Today, Taylor and I took a CPR class.  Taylor felt that it was very important for her (and everyone else) to learn CPR because no one performed CPR on her when she had the cardiac arrest.  The instructor was especially moved that Taylor was there.  She (the instructor, an EMT) said that she has only known one other person who had survived a cardiac arrest.  So, learn CPR if you don’t know it.  You could save a life!