UPDATE: Fridley's Roman Kotas Moves Hospitals After Bike Crash

Updated below: Roman Kotas, the on Mississippi Street NE, has moved to Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul. 

The move, from Hennepin County Medical Center where Kotas went immediately after the July 14 accident, came after he showed good progress, according to his parents' journal at CaringBridge:

Roman's CAT scan came back looking just great. We were so relieved that there won't have to be any more procedures or delays. And there won't be any more last minute tests that might stand in the way of moving him to Gillete. ... He loves to talk on the phone so today he talked to Grandma and his teacher, Ms. Lee. We also showed him the Caring Bridge site and he was really impressed by the messages and number of hits it has had. He said, "I must be popular!" and we agreed that he definitely is. ...

He is very committed to doing the work at Gillette, in part because he dislikes the way his writing looks when he attempts it, wants to walk on his own and do his business in private, and has had enough of being the subject of proddings and pokings, however well-intentioned, at the hospital. I think that, like us, he feels that the pendulum, from its midpoint, is now beginning the upward swing, and there's a sense of relief and renewed purposefulness. Besides, Gillette feels less like a hospital, and there are plenty of other kids around (including teenagers).

Update (Thursday, 8:30 p.m.): Roman Kotas' parents report it "feels like Gillette is the perfect place for him to be for rehab." Here's an excerpt from their Thursday-night update: 

One of the funny things about the process of assessing Roman's cognitive abilities is that his natural Roman-ness is shining through. The speech therapist took us aside and said, "We've noticed that Roman is very verbose. And when we present him with a picture to interpret he tends to avoid the obvious answer and offer a more elaborate explanation of the scene." We were put in the hilarious position of trying to explain that those traits have nothing to do with the accident -- that's just our family. Our whole family is verbose and likely to skip the obvious answer in favor of something we think is a lot funnier.