Matt and Peter's Update

We spent the last couple of days with Robbie and the progress that he has made is truly unbelievable. Rob is very focused on his rehab and has a good attitude. It is very noticeable the progress that he is making from day-to-day.

When I (Matt) first arrived Robbie had recently awoken from a nap and was very alert and energetic. When I walked in the room, he looked up from his bed and said excitedly, "Hey Mateo!". Happy to see me and full of energy, Judi immediately suggested we go out for a walk...we went for a long walk outside around the hospital complex, for about 20-25 minutes and then sat down on a bench outside the rehab facility. While we were there, we talked for a while, with Robbie sometimes very clearly expressing himself and other times mixing things up a bit (at that point I was just starting to understand the things that Robbie has no problems with and other things like places and time, that are in parts of his brain that are still healing) While we were chatting, Peter strolled up and Robbie immediately recognized him and popped up and gave hime a huge hug.
We sat outside on a park bench shooting the breeze for quite a while.

Rob still has his sense of humor and pretended to not know things several times to play tricks on us, made jokes with the nurse who was coming to take blood and joked with a group of patients in PT when they discovered he was in the wrong group. Also, when you ask him a question that he knows the answer to he often either makes a face like "are you kidding me, of couse I know that" or makes a joke of the question. While he still has some trouble collecting his thoughts sometimes or gets stuck on a thought, he easily recognizes people and speaks very clearly. Let me tell you all, that the three of us went through a big box of pictures and he remembers everyone. Even when he trips up on a name, he knows the face and when you help with the name, he says something like..."of course I know that is "blank". He seems very happy in his current surroundings and has lots of freedom to wander around. Funny enough, he once said that it was like a hotel and another time he made a freudian slip after a walk and said "we going back inside the prision?" I am much more relieved now on my second trip down here and see the old Robbie already shining through and have no doubt that a full recovery is around the corner.

On a few of the little things, while we were there we played checkers, blackjack, went out for lunch in the cafeteria in the main hospital, watched a movie, brought Rob some BBQ from his favorite restaurant, spoke a little Japanese with him and sang "Uncle John's Band" together. Rest assured Funbobby is gonna be ok.