(Originally posted April 26, 2009)

In about a half an hour, ten weeks will have passed since J.J.'s stroke. He's made a lot of progress during that ten weeks. I've made a lot of progress in that ten weeks. Our marriage has made a lot of progress in that ten weeks. I feel like a completely different person now than I was then.

This weekend has been kind of challenging. First of all, yesterday was my sweet baby boy's birthday. Eli is 9! I'll post his birthday slideshow tomorrow; I've been so busy lately I haven't had time to put the finishing touches on it. Anyway, it was a day for celebration.

At the same time, J.J. started a new medication on Thursday after his doctor's appointment and started displaying symptoms of a deep depression yesterday afternoon. I convinced him not to take it last night and by this morning he was back to himself. It was a scary few hours, though. He has an appointment with our doctor tomorrow morning anyway, so we're definitely going to check with her to see if there's anything else he can take.

This afternoon we attended at barbecue at our best friend's house. It was astonishing that several people who have never met J.J. didn't notice anything was wrong until he got going in a deep conversation and twisted a concept around. I translated (I'm getting really good at J.J.-to-English!) and informed them that J.J.'s ten weeks out from a stroke. They didn't believe me at first!

I also had a dream this morning that I formed a nonprofit organization for young stroke survivors and their caregivers. I woke up thinking, well, why not? I haven't been able to find a whole lot of info on the topic, maybe I could at least put together a clearinghouse of information. So my hope is to research the topic thoroughly this year, and perhaps have something put together for launch by May 1, 2010 (May being National Stroke Awareness Month). More on this will follow, I'm sure!

My husband is lying in bed behind me, reading. I'm going to go interrupt him