In the days since the last update, continuing through yesterday, my mother plateaued on her progress. She was not waking -- she continued to open her eyes on occasion and usually squeeze her left hand when asked to. On Friday there was the suspicion that she was regressing just slightly, but the doctor did a cat scan and found that the swelling was continuing to go down, and what remaining blood there was was continuing to be absorbed by the body.

Today Darleen and I went over to the hospital to see her for the first time in six days (very difficult to see her during the work week and not much point when she was stable but not conscious), and when we arrived my father said that she was doing much better. When we went in to see her, we saw for ourselves.

She naps most of the day, but now when we go to see her, she opens her eyes and looks at us and is cognizant of her situation and what we say to her. She can't speak, because she is still on the ventilator, but she understands and reacts to things we say. She smiled when we showed up and focused her eyes on us. She communicated with us by pointing and, once when we left, waving. She mouthed the words "I love you" and "bye," which is a pretty strong if not conclusive indicator that the speech generation part of her brain is fine.

She apparently comprehends things well, too. She grinned and seemed to want to laugh when I wondered what a particular species of bird was out the window (both my parents and Darleen are birders, so we talk about birds a lot even though I'm not only a vicarious bird-watcher) and all it was was a robin. (Well hey, I didn't see the red breast until it flew away.) Her eyes widened in amazement when my father told her she had had a stroke and been in the hospital for 12 days -- apparently she had no sense that such a long period of time had passed. But her reaction indicates she understood what she was told and understands what it implies.

So needless to say, this is extremely good news. "Out of the woods" is premature, and it's also premature to project an arc of recovery from here (although another month in the hospital is probably a minimum). And there will undoubtedly continue to be ups and downs. Prayer is still needed. But with all those caveats, I think today was a very good, very encouraging, very relieving day.

Again, thanks to all for your continued support.