An End In Sight?

Things around here have been busy,as I am sure it is in everybody's home this time of the year.We have been painting our living room from a sage green to "Raffia Cream",putting up crown molding,as well as window and door molding. The room is coming along nicely. Rick has been working to tolerance,as usual. He gets real tired because his brain has been working hard and his knees are in so much pain. There was a big source of frustration:the crown molding. Try as he might,even after reading our Home Depot Book and talking to people who have put up crown molding before,he could not figure out how to get the corners to be right. The molding does not sit flat on the wall,it sits at an angle. He spent four days (a few hours a day was all he could take)trying to get the correct angle on one piece of molding. His brother Brian spoke up and said that he remembered that they sell corner pieces that the molding can butt up against-no cutting! What do you know? The crown molding went up in a couple of days.It is now painted and just needs to be caulked in spots.
Our Christmas tree is up,and it looks nice with the white lights and red and white checked bows. I do have some other ornaments on it,but not many. I wasn't sure I was going to like the white lights,having never used them,but it does look good.
Today was a good day. We got the Narrative Summary from Fort Drum via email for Rick to look over. Tomorrow he needs to call his contact at Fort Drum tomorrow,go over the Narrative Summary. It then goes to Walter Reed,where it will be reviewed by other doctors who will make the determination of how much of a disabiity Rick will get. It is amazing to actually see the end in sight,after four years and three med boards. We have learned,however,to keep hope at a minimum,because of all the curves that this process has thrown our way.This way we don't get overly optimistic just to be disappointed again.
Rick's speech therapist also told us today that Rick does not need to go to sessions any more. We were surprised. She said that he has made good progress in his word associations.There will still be issues going forward,because the memory loss is permanent,but she taught him skills to help him remember words, appointments-basically how to make things easier to remember.For instance,,in his PDA,instead of jotting down "Zach's honors assembly at school",he will write only one or two words that he knows will jog his memory. He wrote "Honors"in the time slot it begins.This one word triggers his memory of what the event is.
Rick also had another sleep study last night. When he had the first one in August,he was not laying down-he slept sitting up in the bed. He stopped snoring 9 times an hour. Well,for a real accurate study,he needed to be laying down. So they did the test again,and we should see by the beginning of the New Year if his sleep apnea is worse when he is laying down. It should be interesting.
The woodstove is making the house so nice and warm. It is very cold outside this evening-with the wind chill it might hit the single digits. Up north in Coos County it may hit -30 below.Brr!!!