Friday was our last day of Aphasia U Boot Camp. 

I don’t think I posted about this before but on the first night, Derrick’s wife and sister came to talk about the website they’ve started in Derrick’s memory. https://www.strokestrong.org/

To help raise awareness of aphasia, they are making each participant with aphasia their own cards like Derrick’s. A volunteer photographer took all the pictures Wed night when we were all dressed up.  

Friday morning during the closing meeting, each participant received several turtle themed gifts including this one that’s now on our fridge.

We spent the early afternoon at the pool with Darsie and Jennie. First, Zack tested out the tubes and decided we needed the bigger ones! 

Darsie decided she preferred walking to floating and did amazingly! She walked 3 times around.

We were lucky enough to spend our evening with Art and Becky from NYC. We ate at the Mirage then saw the Beatles Cirque de Soleil, Love. Below is us before the show and then with Art, Becky and 5 of our favorite speech therapist masters students after the show.

Right after I took this picture, we rushed to the casino convenient store to get a pair of tweezers. Some people with aphasia are really sensitive to noise so Art had put in some smaller (than usual for him) ear plugs and they had slipped too far in. Rhianon and Elizabeth got one but the other was too far down so off to Urgent Care we all (9) went. (This is us in the convenient store.)

Next we went to a really calm and great Urgent Care. Art was in great spirits while Becky did all the paperwork and he waited his turn.

After he was taken in the back, the students organized games and we passed the time happily. 

To celebrate the doctor’s success and the Ubers being ordered, the girls sang and danced New York New York! We were so blessed to spend the week with them.

Now we’re home and Tom has a prominent spot in the living room. And our fridge has some great art from Felisa and memories from an amazing week.