"Walk With The Cups, Grasshopper"

I trailed Lauren in PT & OT today. Nothing dramatically different in OT. More games like Scategories, pedaling the hand bike while standing, and best of all, her and I hitting a beach ball back and forth to each other while Lauren was sitting balanced on top of a big therapy ball. Fast paced lunging on a squishy ball that a week ago she had a hard time just sitting on top of. I think we got up to 27 without dropping, although getting to that point involved hitting a lot of stuff, including the ceiling, equipment, and an OT intern in the face. Kate said she is doing well and that they are working on adding endurance to her fine motor skills activity.

A lot of new stuff in PT (at least for me). First she was on the elliptical. You could see in 10 minutes of repetition how much more smoothly her left leg moved. I reminded her that 4 weeks ago she was suspended in a monkey harness, just trying to walk on a slow moving treadmill. There were a lot of those reminders today, most of which she did not remember. I told her that was because she was on drugs then. After the elliptical, Lauren went on a mat and both forward and side kicked a weighted foam pad that was her size (see Kung Fu with David Carradine). She did well, I wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley! Lastly, Ashley had her practice falling, both forward and sideways onto a thick floor pad. That was so she could practice "going down" without hurting herself. Ashley said that the Drs. Kim still had not reconciled on the Botox, she said that she and the Ms. Dr. Kim are for it, but need to confirm with Mr. Dr. Kim.

The afternoon session of PT was busy. Lauren walked on a slow treadmill without her MAFO (she calls it a MoFo), just in stocking feet. The MAFO (Molded Ankle-Foot Orthotic) is the lavender brace with hot pink straps. It keeps her foot perpendicular to her leg, which tends to go toes down. So this exercise is designed to strengthen her ankle and give her more ankle control. Ashley then took her on the mat and had her do small exercises without the MAFO on, like lifting her toes without lifting her ankle, and lifting her heel without lifting her toes. The next activity involved Ashley placing plastic cups between the parallel bars. 12 of them, staggered, so that Lauren had to lift each of her feet to walk over them and down the bars. She did this back and forth four times. Then Ashley placed 10" high traffic cones in a triangular pattern in front of Lauren and she had to lift her right leg and touch the top of each of the cones lightly, then return her leg and do the same with the left leg. She had to alternate each leg and do four repetitions, then go back to the parallel bars, walk with the cups four times, back to the cones for four repetitions. She must have done really well because then Ashley let her skip down the hall. Or rather, Ashley MADE her skip down the hall, which takes coordination, strength, and balance. The hall is a long one, right in front of the surgical waiting room where we spent so many tense hours waiting to hear from the surgeons. Irony? Synergy? Closure? I can't find the right word for how odd that felt.

We are still on track for a Tuesday, April 13th release. I found out today that they discharge them in the morning, so she will have Tuesday off before starting at the Day Hospital on Wednesday.