Day 306

Good evening. Its been a while but sometimes no news is good news. Shawna continues to progress slowly. We hired a massage therapist to help combat the tone in her left side. At this point it seems to be working very well. At least she is not in total pain all the time. Her friends have even managed to take her shopping and let her pick the items she wanted. That takes a lot of patience as it sometimes takes quite a while to get a consistent answer. The SLP therapist has been having a lot of good sessions with her as has the OT assistant. The physiotherapist and myself have also been able to assist her in paterning walking. She has been standing beautifully with little adverse effects from the tone. One other exciting development is that we had Shawna in a partial crouch against her door and asked her to stand up which she did three times. Those are the same muscles used to lift your feet when walking. We are currently building an addition or sunroom on the house to facilitate an exercise room and more family space as the wheelchair routes have decimated our living area. When this is finished we hope to have an open house for those who would like to come and visit Shawna. We know there may be a lot of visitors but we are getting quite used to our house being an open house anyways. Its been exactly 10 months since her accident and Shawna is continuously getting stronger and we thank the Lord fo his gifts. Thanks for your prayers and support. Al, Deb, Shawna and family

(Day 293)

Good afternoon all. We've had to slow down on walking Shawna for a while till the tone in her left side leaves. The physiotherapist doesn't want her walking till she can again keep her trunk muscles straight otherwise she will have a crooked gait. Her left side is getting a lot of tone which we are constantly combatting by sitting her leaning right and having her rest lying down on her right sde. Once it dissappears we will resume her walking exercises. Its a bad thing about the tone but an extremely good development that her left side muscles are being energized and mapped by her brain. She went in for a supposedly simple proceedure to remove the "J-tube" on monday. Aside from being difficult to pull out there was a looming danger of food leaking from the opening from the lower intestine. Thankfully we could turn her feeds down and not exercise her for a couple of days. The opening has now closed and everything in regards to her feeding is once again normal. Shawna has agan been taking small bites of puddng and smoothies and swallowing them successfully. She is staying awake a lot more during the day especially when the therapists are there. The only times she is sleepy is if she doesn't have a good nights sleep. This is something that has developed lately. Now that she has very good mobility with her right arm she scratches and grabs at things when she is lying down. Once she got a hold of her feeding tube and almost pulled it out. Now we put a stress ball in her hand and enclose the hand in a tube sock ensuring that she can't grab her tube again. As a result she has restless times at night which may require some sleeping medication in the future. It makes for restless nights for Deb and myself as we hear her sighing and scatching motions on and off throughout the night. We are thankfull to our Heavenly Father though for what he continues to give us and leave our cares and worries in His hands as he guides us on his path. Thanking you again for your prayers and support. Al, Deb, Shawna and family

Sunday(day 286)

Good morning all. We have been very blessed this week. Shawna was standing so beautifully on tuesday night that I brought her forward away from the door and she stood with minimal support for over a minute. She was so excited and smiled immensely. When spoke with the physiotherapist the next day about this he had me repeat the procedure with her. He was also very excited about this when she did it again. His next words were "let's walk her". I thought he was going way too fast but we supported her on either side and with Deb moving her legs and feet we walked her three times across the room approx 12 ft. She was so tired after that she slept for an hour. We now do this with her every night to start patterning her for walking. She seems to be able to assist us with bending her knee and helps us slightly with slidng her feet. It may take a very long time of mimicking this walking pattern for her to take her first steps. I will post the video of it when I get my camera back from loaning it out yesterday. We are so thankfull to our Father for again showing us he is in control. He gives us hope for her recovery. Everything else is continuing as before. Her feeding is continually being increased. We are up to 130 ml/hr with the target being 180. This way already Shawna is able to have a good nights rest with no feed machine going. Shawna enjoyed a whole day out at the wedding and reception of her cousin Sarah and Colin Hekert. It was a beautiful and stimulating day for her. She was awake and in her wheelchair for almost 12 hrs with a small laying down break. She smiled almost the whole day. It was a very beautiful experience for all who saw her. Once again we give thanks to our Heavenly Father who continues to provide for us. Thankyou for your prayers and support. Al, Deb, Shawna, and family