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July 30, 2010

Shirley is enjoying living in her own apartment with other people that empathize with her situation, and she really loves "The Center" in Tulsa, Ok.

This new transition has helped us get along better, it is a very difficult thing to go from being someone's twin sister and best friend to going into a role of caretaker and Guardian. Although it was not easy, my mother and I and, most importantly, Shirley worked extremely hard to get Shi. some normality back and we are achieving this goal each day with through therapy. Because without therapy we would not be moving forward on this rocky road.

Shirley has had many treatments from St. Francis Hospital, Coweta Manor Nursing home, The Oklahoma Neuro Specialty Therapy at the City Plex Towers, Dr. Adam Sherman a Nuro psychologist that helped us better understand what was going on and how T.B.I ( Traumatic Brain Injury)has effected Shirley, from there Shirley is now attending The Center and loves being there....and has learned so much to help adapt and become better, and healthy.

Shirley has had a wide variant of rehabilitation Cognitive/behavioral, occupational, art and music therapy, psychological, she also has brain boosters and attends speech therapy O.R.U, Physical Therapy, and a literacy program at Tulsa Public Library.

Shi's rehabilitation is extremely important for "us" to obtain her's and our goals.

So Shirley may have her normality back, and what I mean by "normality" is being able to read and write poetry again or a book, to be able to drive to the grocery store and not have to have someone else do your groceries for you at the age of 34, to be able to jog/ ride her bike down river parks, to go to work again and not be dependent on the system and others to financially take care of her, to have the rite to decide what you want to do with your life....to get married, to go to school/Collage and earn a degree of specialty, to dance, to go sailing or floating on the lake, to have true independence of her own person.

Shirley has achieved so much in the past 2 years almost 2 years (Nov.2, 2008), and my mother and I along with Jacob Proctor one of my best friends and our angel during some of the roughest and toughest times along with many friends and strangers, and with out the therapist and rehab "us" singly would have not been able to get Shirley where she is now, and although she still has a long road ahead of her I know if she sticks with the program Shirley will regain Normality again.

Oh, and one thing is The Center is not a $20,000 dollar program and yes at one time we where paying that for her treatment for Nero therapy , it is Imperative that Shirley attends rehab on a day to day basis, much like you attend work or school except this is to help Shirley become healthy and strong again.

So please help us - even if it is $10.00 - that is fine, because
it all adds up and it helps us help Shirley repair what this drunk driver did to her.

She deserves a chance, and at the moment I am unable to pay the out of pocket expenses and so is my family....we have broken our selves financially paying for out of pocket costs that government aid does not cover for Shirley.

I have hope and faith that she will heal, and I try to hold on to that instead of being negative which I battle everyday to keep faith. Being Negative in an already difficult situation makes things extremelly  BAD and terrible!

So keep faith, and hope. We send you our blessings and love.

Thank you for caring about us and helping me to help my sister.

-Linda Deatherage