Thursday 15 July 2010 at 2223

Good Evening and Almost Good Morning Here,

I would have done this much earlier but the computer at the hospital was having a major problem.

I'm think I'm losing my mind. I was doing laundry tonight, cleaning all of David's workout clothes for the past three or four days and all was going well. I went down and put everything in the dryer and pushed through the quarters and then watched the end of Burn Notice and the first half of Royal Pains and then rushed down to pull everything out of the driver and realized that I had not pushed the button to start the dryer. I didn't have any more quarters so now I have break-away pants and t-shirts draped all around my room for the night. Pretty brilliant huh!!!!

Today was another great work-out day. Jon C., from the workout series P90X came into the Physical Therapy clinic today and took pictures with many of the soldiers. David and several of his buddies in Afghanistan were working out with the P90X workout CDs just to keep themselves in shape. Once again I feel a little like a couch potato. Here these soldiers are, working in the heat of 100 degrees plus with a full uniform with metal plating in every possible place they can put it and then carrying an 80 pound pack for hours and hours and hours, and then they come back to their compound or tent and workout for fun. I sit, watch TV, eat JuJu Fruits and Tropical Dots and wonder why my physic is not stunning. David talks all the time about getting a 6 pack and I tell him I'm way past that point, I'm up to a gallon and working on a keg.

Today David worked on transferring himself from his wheelchair to his bed, completely by himself. He did it four times. With each time he drew a little more blood from a few of his injury sites. You guessed it, I wasn't allowed to lift a finger. It is a very intense workout. He has to do everything with his hips that are still bolted together with the X-fix, with his right arm that has 9 separate wound and/or surgery sites, and his head and shoulders. I was very very impressed with his will to do it and take another step to freedom. It was, once again, a very emotional experience for me and a very thrilling a achieving feeling for David.

He did a bunch of Butt Ups, it's like a sit up but the lower half of his body is lifted instead. The Therapist showed me how it was done and David did it better than she did. She was rocking to get her rear end off the mat David was doing it all with his head flat on the mat.

Then he did a bunch of leg presses hard enough to lift his rear end and the small of his back in the air. Those are done by pushing the wounds on the back of his legs into a rolled pad. Every exercise he is doing is with a great deal of pain and he just seems to work through it.

We've found that David, and many of us, has given himself an injury. It seems that when we're talking on the cell phone and the arm is always bent in a tight V, and when we sleep with out arm bent in that same V on our chest, it does damage to the Ulnar nerve and starts to put numbness in the pinky finger and takes strength away from portions of the hand. David now needs to play close attention to keeping his left arm to his side so the nerve can regenerate itself and give normal function back to his hand.

So, we all seemed to learn today. David received a few cards from home today. He read a wonderful note from the Pierson's - he was very very grateful. You have all done so much to make this transition as good of an experience as is possible. I think we all need to find those around us who served in Vietnam, and give them the same respectful Thank You! They deserved that same amount of respect.

It's morning now so I best get my beauty sleep - I obviously need it.

I Love You All,

Gordon