Friday

During my visit with Steve on November 11 & 12,  Steve asked me to write an update, so here it is. (Mike McMillan)

Mel Tenneson and I walked into Steve’s room last Monday afternoon and he welcomed us smiling with outreached hands.

We were in time for Steve’s physical therapy session, starting with sit-ups, then “transfers” – with Steve moving from his wheelchair to his PT table. Steve has strong core strength. Steve is impressing his team of occupational and physical therapists with his grit and his wit, as he works hard at every activity, including the recumbent bike (arms and legs) and also harness-assisted walking around the large PT room with assistance from his therapists.

They assisted Steve with keeping his posture centered which is also dependent upon his vision, something Steve is working to improve with the care of ophthalmologists who visited him while we were there.

Tuesday was the first time in months Steve ate semi-solid food: cream of wheat with brown sugar and butter, and chocolate ice cream for dessert. Steve is swallowing better – another function he’s working to improve daily.

Steve said he could see the snow blowing sideways outside the wide windows in his room, and he asked if it was sticking to the ground. Soon after his occupational therapist came in the room she escorted Steve to the first-floor coffee shop – he pushed his own way there mostly. Steve ordered his coffee with cream and no sugar. We cooled it down a little bit, he put it to his mouth to drink, then again with a smile of approval on his face, his first coffee in a long time.

We played “hangman” as Steve wrote on the dry erase board. First word – 11 letters. My turn. “I already know the answer” I admitted, saying “S” as Steve wrote it down above the first dash on the board.  Eric Reynolds joined the group that morning, and was still stumped as Mel and I offered “K” and “M” then an “O”. Mel said “J” and Steve added it to the board. That’s about when Eric figured the word out, so we all gave him a hard time naturally. Next word Steve came up with that we solved was “BUST”. I explained to his occupational therapist that the word refers to when smokejumpers are all jumping fires to their hearts’ content.

Steve’s voice is light but completely understandable when I listened closely and watched his lips. After a lifetime of firefighting noise, it’s a bit harder for some people to hear Steve with one of his vocal cords still idle. But Steve expresses himself with all of his great recollection of people, places, and events from the past.

I ordered Steve a small, portable voice amplifier used by teachers and others, so if it helps then maybe he can be better heard by those of us with compromised hearing, myself included.

We left Steve in the good company of Eric Reynolds and his 8-string ukelele, and Paul Bannister,  who is there daily while Steve is in SLC.