Day 22 - Thursday January 5, 2012 p.m.

Last night during the night I got this idea to bring in a white board for Bridgett to try writing on.  With the neck brace it is very hard for her to even look at the board, but we held it up in the air, she grasped the marker and began to write. She drew a squiggly line with a circle around it.  I was going to take a picture of it, but someone erased it before I did.  Today we tried again and she didn't even hold the marker, just let it slip out of her hand.  Like many things that she does, she's not consistent at this point. It's hard for us to understand the whole coma thing.  It seems weird that she is walking and interacting with us, but not awake yet.  Of course, she is good about doing things in her sleep, including texting! This morning when Brandon came in to do PT with her, he and his assistant did arm and leg exercises first.  Then they got her up to walk.  This time they headed out of the room and down the hall.  She walked clear to the end of the hallway, turned around and walked back.  Of course, she is supported on both sides as she walks.  They walked her back to her bed, but she still wanted to walk and wouldn't sit down.  They walked her again into the hallway, to the nurses station and back to her bed.  She still didn't want to sit, so they let her stand for about 5 more minutes, then convinced her to sit.  It was awesome to see her walk so far.  Everyone at the nurses station was cheering for her.  We feel great about the decision to get her straight into rehab!  Mark and I left about 10 to go the Salt Lake to check out the rehab at the University of Utah hospital.  We had a great tour. When we were sitting outside the office I said it's too bad we couldn't meet the doctor in charge, as that would help me decide easier.  About 1 minute after I said that the office door opened and the gal giving us the tour, Janal (who has been awesome through this whole process) came out to talk to us and at that moment the doctor in charge was walking down the hallway and she introduced him to us.  He was awesome!  He helped us make a decision right away, we called to Provo, we told Janal it was a go and she said hurry back to Provo, I'll have an ambulance ready in 2 hours!  Mark rode to the hospital in the ambulance with Bridgett while I gathered up the kids, removed all our stuff from the hospital waiting room in Provo and from the Guest House, we gased up the cars and headed up to Salt Lake.  Unfortunately we were right at rush hour, which was an interesting experience for Arrianne since it was her first time driving on the freeway.  She did great!  We found the Guest House here in Salt Lake and got checked in with only a few snags (couldn't find it at first, they had the wrong room with a king bed, etc).  They we took the free shuttle to the hospital.  By the time we got to her room (I got lost in the big hospital, but only a little lost) we were all exhausted.  We took turns going to the cafeteria for dinner, and then spent time visiting Bridgett.  The shuttle is a handy thing to use.  We only had to wait like 5 minutes to get picked up.