Day 264 - Monday September 3, 2012

The first thing we did this morning was to go and visit the ICU in Provo.  Stephany had made a wonderful basket to leave at the ICU for people that had a family member in the ICU.  It's full of things that might be necessary or at least nice to have--travel toothbrushes, mouthwash, lotion, deodorant, chapstick, protein bars, life savers, decks of cards (for the waiting room), candy, and nuts (maybe more I can't remember!).  The nurses were just amazed to get the basket.  More amazing yet was their reaction to seeing Bridgett.  Of course, not many people return to the ICU to say hi.  It was very fun.  Trauma Tom was there and they paged him to come and say hi.  We saw a couple of nurses we recognized.  It was very fun although it was sobering for the girls I think.  We got a picture of the three girls standing in the waiting room although Arrianne said I can't think of why you want to remember this place.  We do have some pictures of family and friends in the waiting room while Bridgett was there; of course, we were all so stressed it is hard to even remember those days very well.  From my point of view, it was nice to be where we are now...with Bridgett doing so much better and just visiting the hospital!  It represented a little bit of closure to the whole thing I thought.  Afterwards Bridgett had a massage with Josh Chappell.  He did a great job of loosening up her neck muscles and she was at a pain level of zero afterwards!  We then headed to swin at Deb's house (along with Jenn and her family and Deb's daughter Sonya and her family), which might not have been great timing since Bridgett had just had a massage.  I don't know how much of this I have blogged about but Bridgett had been so afraid to swim because she thinks she might drown--even in the hot tub.  This has been very strange for us as Bridgett has always been a great swimmer and fearless in the water ever since birth.  Overall Bridgett has always been unafraid to try new situations etc. so to see her so afraid has been very uncharacteristic.  When she saw Bob last week her challenged her to swim some time in the next week.  They talked the whole situation over and the fact that Mark would help her and that the water would be shallow enough that she could just stand up.  She ended up being excited to swim and so she readily agreed to go to Deb's to swim.  We got pictures of her as she slowly entered the pool.  Normally in the freezing cold lake she would just plunge in (like she did at the polar dips!) and this time she instead slowly entered down the steps, stopping to get used to the feel of the water.  However, once in the water she stayed for quite a while and really enjoyed it.  She did some floating and she treaded water.  She played with the beach balls and swam underwater.  All in all it was a great time and I got some cute pictures.  When she got cold after about an hour she got out and got dressed and then shortly thereafter we all had some dinner and then headed back to Provo.  While we were there Deb's neighbor Leslie came over (after Deb got my permission) to meet Bridgett and I.  She has been reading the blog and wanted to meet us although she had previously met Mark and Jenn and Tyler Fenn.  It was so nice to meet her and discuss Bridgett for a bit.  I showed her a picture of Bridgett in the ICU; although it is a hard picture to look at it really helps you realize how far she has come.  It's good for all of us to remember where we have been and where we are now.  All in all it was a good day and we all had fun.  It will be hard to leave Provo tomorrow and we will miss our sweet daughters so much.  It's always to fun to spend time together and hard for that time to end.