Tuesday and Wednesday, October 31st and November 1st

Good morning,

I'm a little bit behind on updates again but the past couple of days have been busy and good for Tori. So here we go!!

Tori ended up sleeping the entire night on Monday. She didn't wake up once which is very unusual for her and we have only seen her do it once or twice before. Of course Maria and I woke up often just to check on her anyway. She was still connected to the pulseox monitor but it never alarmed which is very good of course. And on that front, we finally removed Tori from her nightly oxygen on Tuesday night!! Hurray!! :-) She is now maintaining a 91-95% blood oxygen level even when she is in a deep sleep state. We are still leaving the pulseox connected for monitoring purposes.

Halloween was a very busy day for all of us with parties and activities throughout the day and night. Brendan (Ninja Warrior) and Whitney (Ballerina - surprise surprise :-) ) had parties at school, Brendan had one at my office as well and then they made the neighborhood rounds during the evening. Meredyth came over and had a very productive session with Tori. Tori created her own Halloween poster by picking and choosing every item that was placed onto it. She also worked with the red button switch controlling the disco ball. In another exercise Tori had to select the image items to be removed from a Halloween themed piece of paper. Tori successfully removed all of the items that were 'non-Halloween' related.

Tori continues to eat cheese, candy, ice cream, bread, yogurt and anything else that is present at the time. The amounts are still very, very small but we are always trying to increase. Tori is also very entertained when Brendan and Tinkers are playing around her though she becomes quite concerned if Tinkers is placed on her lap. Tinkers likes to give Tori kisses and Tori can't defend herself too well against them :-)

Megan visited Tori on Wednesday morning and began by asking Tori yes/no questions about colors. Tori wasn't in the mood to answer them so Megan changed the subject and started asking Tori about herself and her feelings. Here are Megan's personal observations from that point - "She answered all 17 questions with no help and very deliberate about her answers. She said she was happy today, that she likes spending time with her grandma, and that she enjoyed her friend coming over. She also said that she would like to come to school in her wheelchair. I asked that questions several times in several ways and she said yes to all of them. She also said that she has a hard time sleeping because she has nightmares. I just wanted to pass the info on. I think we need to try to get her to the school. I think it would be good for her." The nightmares response was interesting because Tori woke up at 4:00am Tuesday night and was extremely upset and basically screaming as loud as we have ever heard her. It lasted for 15 minutes after she awoke and took another hour to get her relaxed and sleeping again. We were pretty sure had a nightmare at that time and Megan basically confirmed it. We will also now work towards a simple school visit to see how that goes.

Thank you all once again,

-Tim