Dylan's shopping at Mill's Mall!

Dylan did a great job this week!
 
We bought him an Ipad to help with his speech therapy. The therapist said that it would really be a great tool to assist in his recovery. She’s very excited to see what he can do with it. We can download apps for reading books, doing math, learning new languages, playing games, listening to music and much more! She is going to use it with him five days a week during her therapy sessions.

He got to take a ride in the car this weekend. We had received a note from the doctor a couple of weeks ago allowing us to take Dyl on a short (2 hour) trip out of the facility, but he hadn’t really been up to it until this weekend. On Saturday we loaded everyone into the Denali and took him out for about a half hour. We drove around the surrounding area. He got to rock out to his favorite Bon Jovi songs and he got to see the Arizona Grand Hotel’s huge fountain. It was sooo cool to see him in the car. You would never know there was anything wrong with him to see him in the car. We originally had him in his “normal” seat then we thought we’d put him in the front seat and he really enjoyed being able to see everything from up there.
 
Then on Sunday we took him to the mall!!! Oh, if you could have seen him just taking in that experience! He was looking at everything and just enjoying being in a new place. We got to take him into a couple of his favorite stores. He loves Zumiez and Tilly’s and we were the first customers in both stores when they opened. Dyl got to pick out a couple of shirts and we were able to just look around for a little while before we had to get him back to the facility so he could eat lunch.
 
Dylan is now eating three meals a day by mouth, they are working on getting his food upgraded from pureed to soft solids, then he can enjoy chicken nuggets, French fries and pizza rolls! I know he’ll LOVE that when it happens. Don’t get me wrong, he loves eating the food they are serving now, but that will be like normal for him he’s going to be having a mini pizza party soon, the speech therapist said he’s almost ready to eat his favorite food and she’s really looking forward to him having that chance.
 
This weekend Dylan was saying uh-uh (no) very clearly and Dan heard him say uh-huh (yes) quite clearly too, it seems like he’s doing really well with forming words too. I saw him try and say “love” and he had the motion of the mouth and tongue right he just couldn’t get the sound to come out. He’s so close and his doctor is very positive that he’s going to be speaking soon.
   
Dylan’s sugar levels are starting to equalize a bit more now too. They have adjusted his eating regiment and we are working on trying to get it to where he eats only during the day and isn’t on the overnight tube feeding. I’m going to call his endocrinologist this week and speak to him about taking Dyl totally off the overnight feed and giving him more carbs during the day. They are giving him such a small amount of carbs right now, he used to eat 70 carbs for each meal and now they are only giving him 35 each meal, I know he would eat the extra food and they could even give him snacks during the day if they needed to. I’m hoping we can get that done soon. I think it would be another big step in his recovery.
 
Please continue to keep Dylan in your thoughts and prayers, he’s doing so good. His spirits are really high and he’s laughing more and more every day! The nurses say he’s hardly ever sad anymore, which is so great to hear!! He used to cry because he was lonely, but he has a new rommmate and they are closer in age than his last roommate was. He also gets to spend time down at the nurses station and they let him go to the cafeteria to eat his meals so it gets him out of the upstairs unit a bit more, which he really enjoys. - Keri