Stryker Brigade News

Thursday addendum (Source: Scott and Tiffany): The golf outing to the indoor driving range went fairly well, but Scott only got one good drive off. He tried hitting the balls, but that wasn't an easy task with one arm unable to report its location. Scott's never been a golfer, but he does like the Miniature variety.

Friday (Same Sources): Scott had Occupational Therapy at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. He made sugar cookies at 11 and frosted, decorated and ate them at 1 p.m. He had help on the latter task from other patients. He also made a tree ornament (a toy soldier, of course) for Aly.

For Physical Therapy, Scott did the usual stretches and then worked on the weight machine. He reports he can press 70 pounds with his left leg and 60 with the right. He said he overdid it a bit, going as fast as he could instead of going at a slower rate. Tiffany said the doctor was present while he was doing them "correctly."

There were no activities on the schedule for Saturday.

Sunday (direct observation): Scott, Tiffany and Alyson arrived a little before kick-off (noon, local time). We watched the Vikings lose to Seattle. Scott wasn't happy with the Vikings' overall performance, but I thought Garth DeFelice did his usual superlative job at Umpire. (It bugs Scott when I know one of the officials because he knows he's in for comments on officiating.) Scott demonstrated his ability to recreate the noise made by that Vikings horn they sound at the games.

The next game was Detroit at Green Bay. We both liked the game and the fact we weren't out in that weather. Miami lost and San Diego won, so we're 1-2 for the weekend. We ate take out Chinese during the game and enjoyed the day.

Scott was able to clearly say "Aly" as well as the first half of the days of the week. For some reason, "-day" isn't coming out yet, but we've got Mon, Tues, Wednes, Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sun.

During halftime of the second game, we got a call from Angel Moss, who has been visiting Travis Majors at the Augusta, Georgia VA hospital. Travis wasn't up to speaking to Scott on the phone, but she did speak to Scott for a few minutes.

We're on our last week here in Minneapolis. Tiff and Julie depart on Thursday while Scott and I leave on Saturday. We are all looking forward to being home for a while. We have no word yet on when Scott has to report to Walter Reed, but he may have to travel to Seattle for some of his therapy while he's up at Ft. Lewis (January 3rd to ?) until he does report. Julie and I will bring him up there on the 3rd and return to San Diego on the 6th. We'll have to wait until we hear something definite out of Walter Reed before we decide when we'll go there. We certainly want to be there for the surgery.

So, tune in again tomorrow...

ST