Hi Everyone,
What a great day! We arrived at the Technical School by 5am. Our pancake crew was ready to go. We had an incredible system set in place. Front of the house set tables, back of the house had the griddle fired up and the ovens on for cooking the sausage. Our community donated all the supplies needed. Volunteers included friends, teachers, former Girl Scout friends, senior classmates and Corey’s fellow culinary students. The culinary students did a great job participating in the Quick Fire Challenge; 6 students per round and each had to make omelets. Creativity, technique and plating all counted. Chef D and Chef Young were the judges. I’ve included a few pictures in the Gallery for you to see.
We raffled off 2 tickets to the June 7th Philly game and the IPad raffle winner will be announced on June 2nd by the Tech School. Recipe cards were taken and will be submitted. We will post the link for anyone that would like to email a recipe to include in Corey’s Cookbook. Thank you to everyone in our community that helped to make this event so special!
After the breakfast, my sister Diane, JohnPaul, Caitlin, their friends and I all headed to the hospital to visit with Corey. We finished eating lunch and as usual the games began…literally. The boys had a small hard ball that they were rolling across the table to try to roll between two bottles. The goal was to squeeze the ball through the narrow space without hitting either bottle (this was trickier than it sounds).
As the kids played this game, Corey watched intently. I turned to Corey and asked her if she wanted a chance to roll the ball. I moved her up to the edge of the table. JohnPaul stated, “Corey reach your hand out and catch the ball”…she fully extended her arm and placed her hand on the table. We were all speechless and silently watched as JohnPaul and Corey began the following dialogue. “Catch the ball when it gets to your hand”. As the ball was rolled towards Corey she waited until just a second before it hit her fingers and then she lifted her hand to cup the ball in the palm of her hand, lifted her forearm and brought the ball to her chest! We couldn’t believe what we saw…there was silence as we held our breath to see what she would do with the next command. JohnPaul instructed, “Corey, now extend your arm and throw the ball back to me”. Corey thought long and hard moving her arm at the elbow, extending and retracting her forearm as she twisted her hand palm up and palm down. To watch her concentration was amazing. She knew she had the ball, she knew what she wanted to do, she just had to figure out how to do it.
Within a few minutes she extended her forearm, palm up and allowed the ball to drop and roll across the table to JohnPaul. This exercise went on for about 10 minutes. It included the ball rolling onto her lap. JohnPaul said, “Get the ball; it’s in your lap on your right side”. Corey not only moved her hand to grasp the ball, she lifted her elbow off the chair pad moving her arm at the shoulder in order to properly reach for the ball positioned at her right hip. We all were stunned watching their exchange.
Corey your ability to physically express your full understanding has us elated! We can’t tell you how exciting it is for us to see you make these tremendous strides. You are healing and your body is beginning to show its renewed strength. It’s happening Corey. Your body is coming back a little more each day. Your mind, your memory, your understanding is becoming stronger everyday. You loved the Palamara motto, “the Difficult is Easy, the Impossible just takes a little longer”…You are showing us that “Nothing is Impossible” regardless of what the calendar says. You are the living example to your word ~ BELIEVE! We are so proud of you Corey. Happy dreams, xoxo