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This update on my brother A came in on Friday.

Good morning to all,

A continues to be at Craig and improve. He is walking with a walker now. Last week he took a test where he listened to headphones and had to write down everything he heard. He managed to write down 80% of the whole test. Not only did he get all 80% correct he even spelled everything correctly. The doctor was very impressed.

It is still extremely painful on a personal level with A. He does not remember any of our life together. He does not remember my girls. He knows that I am his wife because all the staff at Craig have told him repeatedly; however, he thinks that I am someone from his past that he obviously still has very deep feelings for. Over the past month we have been trying to correct him, yet he still insists.

Thanks to those of you for your support, it means so much to me and my family.

This news came as a bit of a blow to us. We knew there'd be memory loss, a fact that was reinforced when he remembered his older daughter clearly but not his younger daughter. We just never knew how far back the memory loss would go. A and J have been married for about two months longer than Nancy and I have. If he's lost that much of his memory, it's going to be really hard for everyone. It'll be particularly complicated if he thinks he's still married to his first wife (his daughters' mother), and if he thinks I'm still married to Practice Wife. Yet he seemed to respond pretty strongly to Nancy the last time we saw him. Who knows? We'll just have to see what happens when we go back to Colorado for Christmas.

A's walking and listening tests are encouraging, though. And the fact that he spelled everything correctly is particularly impressive. I didn't know he could do that even before the accident!

Oh, and with an update unrelated to the accident, we got a phone call on September 9th from my youngest brother S. He called to tell us that he and his sig. ot., K, finally made it official and got engaged. This is really cool, considering that S and K have been dating since before Nancy and I even met. Naturally Nancy wanted to know how it happened, how S popped the question. So here's the story as I heard it:

S's birthday—his 30th birthday, no less—was on September 12th. K had been asking him what he wanted for his birthday, and he'd been pretty non-committal. Ultimately he told her he just wanted a BBQ with all the family there, so K set it up. And at the BBQ, S was asked to make a speech on turning 30. So as part of this he called K up to the front with him. Once she got up there, he said, "You asked me what I wanted for my birthday," then dropped to a knee and said, "I want you to be my wife."

Pretty darned cool.

So as S was telling me that he'd popped the question, I asked, "So, I guess the fact that I'm getting this phone call means she said yes?" After a slight hesitation, he said, "Actually, she didn't say anything at all. She put her hands up to her mouth and started to cry." But yes, she did accept, and our family is the better for it.

More updates as they become available. Keep the thoughts and prayers coming. We appreciate them!

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