1 year

Good morning all. Today will most likely be a day of reflection, as we celebrate life. A life given back to Shawna by our gracious Father. Yes the events of this day remain a vivid picture in our minds but we hold fast to the riches we were given during that time of need. We continue to be supported by the communion of saints and our family and friends to the effect that we truly know we belong to our faithful Saviour.
Some fantastic things have happened to Shawna in the past two weeks. Shawna enjoyed 9 full teaspoons of applesauce in one setting. Her tongue is starting to work better as she swished the applesauce around in her mouth and swallowed successfully. She agreed to each teaspoonfull and opened her mouth to receive it. This was a huge success and Shawna was very excited about it. Another important development was getting Shawna onto her facebook page. She was very excited as she began to read her messages on her wall and inbox. It takes a great deal of effort for everyone who assists her with this to make sure her wishes are followed.
Its been quite cold lately and as a result we have not been taking her out anywhere except appointments. She already went through a bout with stomach flu. With round the clock monitoring she pulled through that episode. On this Wednesday she has an appointment with the neurosurgeon Dr. Wells to see if anything needs to be done regarding the right ventrical enlargement in Shawnas brain. He may want another CT scan done as the last one is now two months old. At least we are started on a pathway to explore why her tone on the left side is so intense.
We've been trying new physio things with Shawna. One that she has been successful with is getting her to initiate rising from her chair or bed and sitting back down again. We bend her forward and give her our arms for her to pull herself to standing and then hold her shoulders as she breaks tone in her knees to sit. She has been getting faster and faster at this and it makes transferring her a lot easier. Another thing we did was have her on her stomach an try to have her in a crawling position. This was not very successful as Shawnas face was pressed into the mattress and she was not comfortable with that position. Later she (5 hrs later) she became sick from that exercise. We will have to wait for more equipment to facilitate this procedure. All in all we continue to receive many blessings from the hand of our Heavenly Father as we continue on the path he has chosen for us. Thanking you again for you prayers and support. Al, Deb, Shawna and family

day 352

Good morning all. When you look at the days gone by it seems like passing by in a high speed train. I can hardly believe that in two weeks we will be 1 year to the date of Shawna's accident. I must say that there has been no shortage of emotional and physical help from Family, Friends and the Communion of Saints, without which we would most assuredly have been swept away. God is an awesome God. He continues to bless us with continued healing and strengthening. Shawna continues to struggle to make consistent sounds. Some days are better than others and some events trigger louder responses. She definitely has a good sense of humour and laughs easily when her brothers clown around with her or themselves in front of her. When she's watching a show she will become deeply involved and will also laugh almost instantaneously at the punchlines. One thing that has been a good investment has been getting the wii system for her therapy. Although the others(myself included) would like to play we first have to do some hand over hand sessions with her. She is very intense, and esp her right hand is right on time and tenses to hit baseballs, tennis balls, music chimes, and especially boxing which she laughs continuously as we decimate her opponents.( thats probably why I'm late on blogging) She enjoyed her birthday with many visitors, cards, and well wishes. I won't lie that she enjoyed it tremendously because the days after she was quite downcast, and pretend sleepy when the therapsits came. This may have been because she remembers her other birthdays and the realization of her limitations at this time in respect to them. We seem to have crossed that bridge again though and she's back to her "old" self. The occupational therapist as well was quite excited to have the wii accessible for her and they use it often for her therapy(I think they just like to play too). Shawna is starting to point with a pointer to smaller items and this is very encouraging for her as the link to communicating becomes stronger. For physical therapy shawna continues to bike, although the tone continues to make a mess of it. We continue to stand and sit her. A new thing we do with her is having her sit and holding her arms in front of her to help her to rise to standing. We wait quite a while for her to pull on our arms and she straightens her legs on her own. This is just another small step in relearning how to stand up. We finally recieved the results of the CT scan done in early December because of the increase in left side tone. Although I have personally not recieved a copy yet, we have made short work of arranging appointments to deal with those results. Its frustrating that it takes so long for results to come to anyone when they are on an outpatient basis. If Shawna was still in the hospital they would have been deeply involved in a plan of action the same day the CT scan was done. According to what has been read to me by our family doctor and the physiotherapist the main findings of the CT scan was that the left ventrical has decreased in size but the right ventrical has increased. We would have expected a decrease in size at the year mark because thats how long it takes. The increase in the right poses a problem. That is most likely the cause of the marked increase in left side tone as the right side of the brain would be under pressure, which is the side that controls the left side of the body. A referral has been made to Dr. Wells at the General to see if anything should be done about this. He may suggest that a shunt be placed in the ventrical to drain it as the normal drain may have been damaged by scarring. Although it is a scary thing to think Shawna may have to have another brain operation, we realize that all things are not in our hands but remain in the hands of our Heavenly Father who sustains and provides us with all things necessary for body and soul. Thanking you again for your support and prayers. Al, Deb, Shawna, and family