1 year and +/- 2 months

Good morning all. I hope you are all enjoying a beautiful Sunday. Just a little reflection first this time. Many times we are travelling around in Hamilton and surrounding areas and people come up to us and say " We're still praying earnestly for Shawna and your family". When we hear this we are deeply humbled and at the same time tremendously strengthened. We know that God hears prayers and by our daughter's progress we can see the answer to these prayers. We join many others at this time who pray for the Bos family in Smithville who yesterday buried their beloved Ricky Bos. She succombed to a form of brain injury in the form of an anuerism. We know in faith that God has called her home, and that her earthly work is done. On the west coast (B.C) my cousin Evelyn Cumming (Debruin) was devastated with the loss of her daughter, Leena (24), in a car crash on March 4. She leaves behind her young daughter Elissa. We continue to pray for our family out West. These accidents teach us how fragile our lives really are, and that we must always be prepared to meet our creator. Live every day to the fullest doing the best work to the tasks we are given, and giving thanks for the blessings we have recieved.
On to Shawnas progress we continue to watch the small steps she continues to take. The thrush in her mouth is steadily lessening with a special diet of probiotic powders and anti-oxidants and some good old fashioned tongue scraping. She has been to see the dentist and amazingly enough she opened her mouth for him to check one time and on another appointment opened her mouth for the hygenist to be able to clean half her teeth this time and hopefully the other half in another appointment. We could not do all her teeth in one appointment as she would have too hard a time to keep her mouth open that long.
We are still waiting for the family doctor and specialist to confer and come up with a recommendation or prescription to administer a different drug to combat tone(dystonic). Her tone is steadily decreasing on its own but very minimally and slowly. She is able to move her head now to center and slowly strenghtening that process. She can also track her eyes from left to right again, but when shes tired they stay to the left.
Pool therapy continues to be a huge success, as the tone is almost all gone when we lay her out in the heated pool. She is experiencing gains in her leg movements steadily, and starting to move her left leg more, while her right leg is increasing its range of purposeful movement. We are changing the location and construction around our hot tub at home to facilitate more of this type of activity especially sitting in the pool.
We lost the MyTobii computer for a while(it was a two week trial) but the process is in the works to get a newer one with more bells and whistles, this time for keeps! A lot of research has to be done to make sure this is a good fit for Shawna and that she will have lots of room to expand her abilities.
We continue to be thankful for the blessings we have recieved from Gods hand and contiue to be strenghtened by your prayers and support......Thanks Al, Deb, Shawna, and family