Family and Friends:

It has been a couple of months now since Antonia had her stem cell treatment. It was pretty discouraging at first when the two to three weeks passed that the doctor said would be the main time frame for seeing improvements, and we didn't see much of anything.

However, since that time, we have seen some encouraging signs of improvement that have not been huge, but significant enough to notice. There are four main areas that seem to be standing out to us. One of them is her short-term memory. There have been several occasions when Antonia has remembered things that completely surprised us. There are people in our church whose names Antonia never seems to remember. One person in particular was Merilee Sindlinger. Merilee would always come up to Antonia and greet her at worship and Merilee would always have to tell her who she was. A couple of weeks ago though, when Merilee asked Antonia if she knew who she was, and Antonia said, "Merilee!" Of course we were all very happy. And then the next week Antonia not only remembered her name again, but also remembered that it was only the second time she remembered Merilee's name.

There have also been several occasions when Antonia held a thought for several minutes before she was able to speak and then when it was her turn, she remembered. The is very significant because normally she only has a several second window before it is gone forever. There have been several other stories I could tell that cause us to look at one another as if to say, "Now... I have never seen that before."

Another area where we have seen some improvements in is Antonia's energy and mobility. She has often had days where she is extra ambitious and will do things she has never done before. We have often gone in the bedroom the past couple of weeks only to find her sitting up in bed all by her self. Because she can roll over and sit up by herself now, she will often do it when we are not in the room. And sometimes this mean getting herself in trouble. We will sometimes hear hoots and howlers from the bedroom, run down the hall, look through the door, and there she is, laying or sitting on the floor laughing.

Antonia has also been controlling her bladder much better. She is able to hold going to the bathroom for some time now, and can even laugh and keep it under control. She was getting much better at this a few months ago, but recently we have noted even greater improvements.

On a couple of really good days Antonia's speech has been exceptional. This of course depends on the kind of day she is having. If she has a bad day it is no better than it has been in past couple of years. However, on some good days that she has had in the past couple of weeks, she is speaking so clearly that she is even able to say "S". This is remarkable for her because no matter what she tried in the past, she was unable to create any "S" sound. You only realize how amazing this is when you try to say an "S" while letting all your air go out your nose. It also involves putting the teeth together and the lips held back, which take a lot to coordinate all at the same time in a middle of a word.

It needs to be noted as well that all of these improvements are not consistent every day. She continues to have bad days when nothing seems to have changed. However, what has changed is that her good days are better than they have ever been. So for this we praise God!

Thank you for your prayers and all your support.

Blessings,
Dean