"Can you give me an E"?

Well, Wiley's apparently not lost his pitch, despite the brain trauma. Nancy and Tim had brought in his guitar even while Wy was in the ICU, though he had no interest in picking it up until yesterday. At that point, he asked for his guitar, but seemed to find the one he was handed oddly proportioned. "It's the small one, honey," said Nancy. He handed it back, "I don't want it." On her next trip home, Nancy picked up the full-sized guitar. This time when she handed it to Wiley, he strummed it and announced "It's out of tune. Grandma, can you give me an E?" He took a stab at tuning it, but handed it over to the nurse, who offered to give it a try. Wiley took it back, strummed, and confided to his mom "It's still out of tune."

The physical therapist (PT) supplied him with a red rubber pick, which is easier for Wiley to hold than the slick hard plastic one he usually plays with. He's now playing his guitar.

Nancy and Tim say that they and Wiley are laughing through much of their time together. He's really handling the discomfort and indignities of this time with astonishing good humor, which is really helpful for everyone.

Other kids are starting school this week in Santa Rosa. Thus, when Nancy got home the other day, she was only initially surprised to get a message from the school to let her know that Wiley had been absent that day. "Hmmmm," she reflected, "I guess I better get that paperwork filled out (that Sean's mom had picked up for her from the school), or Wiley may flunk out before he ever gets back to school!"

Nancy and Tim want to let folks know that while Wiley is now in a position to see occasional visitors, they need to keep visits very restricted, for a couple of reasons. First, there's just not much room in his room, which he shares with 3 - 4 other patients and a nurse. Second, he just gets pretty tired with all the physical therapy they are trying to do with him, and he needs to save his energy for that. Lastly, he just doesn't have a lot of capacity for extended interaction. So they are going to restrict visitors to only those who arrange a visit directly through them, and keep the visits down to about five minutes. They appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

A question came up about Wiley getting mail these days. Since the duration of his stay at the hospital is a little unclear, and Nancy and Tim are pretty much there around the clock but make multiple trips home each day to their house (about 5 minutes away), it's probably easiest if you just mail anything for Wiley to his home. Nancy and Tim can then bring it to him with minimal delay.