Where's my update?
I know you guys are wondering where your update is. Here it is. I stayed up a bit talking with Linda last night and was too tired to sit down at the computer and post the news. Tonight I am in Kirksville. Ellie just got out of the tub and we're watching a bit of Sound of Music before bed.
The weekend went pretty well. It's always quieter on weekends because there is less therapy. Although Saturday had a lot of visitors, Sunday was particularly quiet, since we only had one therapy, OT. Our physical therapist asked me to make sure that Linda got a chance to have weight on her legs and keep her calves stretched, so Linda did the standing frame for 30min too. She likes the rocking chair, so we worked that in for 30min.
Today was a pretty typical day, except that our speech therapist was out, so we didn't have speech. Eating meals counts somewhat as speech therapy, so it isn't exactly like abstaining entirely. And Linda and I worked on word pronunciation with cards. I tried to take us through words she uses a lot, the small connective words. She asks a lot of questions, so we did WHAT, WHY, WHEN. Obviously words like THE, AND, DO, and so on are important. We also ran through the therapists' names.
We had a long grueling occupational therapy today. They did electrical therapy again which means that electrodes were taped to Linda's arms and then electricity is used to contract the muscles over and over. Probably the most tiring part of it is sitting up without much support. She did that for about 45min (we ran over into the canceled ST slot). Since she was tired, we brought the rocking chair up and then did vision exercises. So she got an hour and a half of straight occupational therapy.
I left during the PT session, but she was just getting up in the standing frame. They really want her to do some weight-bearing standing each day, to keep her calves stretched and to prevent her bones from getting soft. Her morning session had been walking in a harness that holds your weight. Since you can't fall, you are free to really work on moving your legs the way you want them to go.
Mary (Linda's twin) just called tonight to say that Linda had bicep contractions on both sides. Over the weekend she had been showing some right arm contraction; she can sometimes bring her hand up to her chest. She can now do that on both sides. According to Mary, Linda was pretty excited. They brought all of the evening nurses in to check it out.
I know you guys are wondering where your update is. Here it is. I stayed up a bit talking with Linda last night and was too tired to sit down at the computer and post the news. Tonight I am in Kirksville. Ellie just got out of the tub and we're watching a bit of Sound of Music before bed.
The weekend went pretty well. It's always quieter on weekends because there is less therapy. Although Saturday had a lot of visitors, Sunday was particularly quiet, since we only had one therapy, OT. Our physical therapist asked me to make sure that Linda got a chance to have weight on her legs and keep her calves stretched, so Linda did the standing frame for 30min too. She likes the rocking chair, so we worked that in for 30min.
Today was a pretty typical day, except that our speech therapist was out, so we didn't have speech. Eating meals counts somewhat as speech therapy, so it isn't exactly like abstaining entirely. And Linda and I worked on word pronunciation with cards. I tried to take us through words she uses a lot, the small connective words. She asks a lot of questions, so we did WHAT, WHY, WHEN. Obviously words like THE, AND, DO, and so on are important. We also ran through the therapists' names.
We had a long grueling occupational therapy today. They did electrical therapy again which means that electrodes were taped to Linda's arms and then electricity is used to contract the muscles over and over. Probably the most tiring part of it is sitting up without much support. She did that for about 45min (we ran over into the canceled ST slot). Since she was tired, we brought the rocking chair up and then did vision exercises. So she got an hour and a half of straight occupational therapy.
I left during the PT session, but she was just getting up in the standing frame. They really want her to do some weight-bearing standing each day, to keep her calves stretched and to prevent her bones from getting soft. Her morning session had been walking in a harness that holds your weight. Since you can't fall, you are free to really work on moving your legs the way you want them to go.
Mary (Linda's twin) just called tonight to say that Linda had bicep contractions on both sides. Over the weekend she had been showing some right arm contraction; she can sometimes bring her hand up to her chest. She can now do that on both sides. According to Mary, Linda was pretty excited. They brought all of the evening nurses in to check it out.
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