Friday may 1, 2009

Just a heads up, but yesterday's post was adjusted with a little more accuracy.  There was some slight miscommunication, bu the "meat" of the story did not change.  Christy had a seizure, but has recovered and actually did very well today.  Christy started with speech therapy this morning which was combined with breakfast because Melea wanted to see Christy eating.  Both Melea and Donald agreed that Christy was dong an excellent job with eating this morning and controlling the muscles surrounding her mouth.  Christy showed considerable improvement from just a few days earlier.  kind of weird considering that she had the seizure in between, but awesome improvement nonetheless.

Christy then went in to 

PT where they spent very little time stretching this morning.  Just enough to

 get her loose for all of the walking they were going to put her through.  They spe

nt time trying to

 get a cane/walker that would be suitable for Christy at this point.  They started with a four-pronged can that Christy had trouble keeping flat.  If you cannot keep the four prongs flat to the ground, yo

u are going to have trouble using it.  They next tried the traditional cane, but Christy still had some trouble with it.  She finally felt best with the walker that you see in the picture.  So, they decided on that one and even put her name on it.

Following PT, she went in to another session  of OT where they worked on her vision and recognition of colors/shapes.  As you can see in the picture, they had her working on matching the certain shapes with the colors  o

n the board.  It is not a puzzle, but it conditions Christy and helps her recognition of the different colors.  She knows the colors and the shapes, but they are working on her vision in this one.  She also worked on the number card in which she had to call out each number that she could see.  Donald said she did very well on this despite the fact that she did not have her new glasses yet.

Donald picked up her new glasses today while Christy took a nap before heading into a second session of PT.  The new glasses helped Christy as she stated that on a scale of 1 to 10 in improving her vision, Christy gave it a five.  The exercises tied in to the new glasses should help her increase that 5 to a 10 with some work.

During her final session of the day, she spent some time in the standing frame and doing some bench press.  As you can see in the picture, her range of motion has gotten a lot 

better since the steroid shot 

she received recently.  According to Donald, she has increased her range of motion a ton.

In addition to all of the rehab, Christy also showed incredible gains in independent movements that her and Donald had been working on.  Christy was able to shower and brush her hair 90% on her own today.  Donald gave her very little help and Christy did great.  She is also brushing her own her again which was a challenge for her up until recently.  Christy also walked without assistance pretty much all over the apartment today.  Christy and Donald are just trying to work on the muscle memory side.  Christy has decided that she realy wants to be doing everything on her own and has been working very hard to do so.

Mind over matter and Christy definitely has a strong mind.  Keep it up Christy and I am sure I speak for everyone when I say that we cannot wait to have you back home in a little over three weeks.