Tom and Terri Bernott

I was able to visit with Tom and Terri while at Sandy Pines. I'm sure some of you remember the story of what happened to Terri. It's been four years now and she's done remarkably well since that fateful day that she went in for minor surgery and, because of hospital error, ended up in a coma for three weeks and has the biggest change in her life that anyone could ever fanthom. I saw her on a good day. She ran to me and threw her arms around me and said "I missed you". Those were the only words she said to me that day. We sat at our trailer for awhile. Pam, Terri's daytime caretaker was with Tom and Terri. After Pam's shift, Tom does all the care for Terri. He also takes care of her on weekends. He's a saint. It has to be so hard to take care of her. He told me that there are days when she doesn't even know who he is. She smiled when Tom told her to smile for me. And she threw him a kiss. It seems that she understands what we said to her and wants to communicate but Tom said that we'd never know if she did or didn't. Tom was told that she would always be bedridden but she walks without a cane or walker and doesn't use a wheelchair. We went back to their new trailer and visited for a few minutes. Then Tom took us on a boat ride. He said that she enjoys sitting on the deck overlooking the lake and loves to ride in the boat. It was a nice ride. Terri got upset once when Tom went a little faster. I think it was because she was cold. I got cold when he speeded up.
I'm putting some pictures that we took that day. I saw Tom, Terri and Pam a couple of days later riding on their golf cart. I went to say hi to them. Terri never responded to me that time like she didn't recognize me. She laid her head on Pam's shoulder as Tom drove away.