Ninety

     The number ninety is our motivation and goal for the next month. When Amaya does her physical therapy we try to get her knee bent to at least ninety degrees. The past two months, we've been able to achieve that and more everyday. Some days Amaya got as high as one hundred and fourteen, and as low as ninety-five. This week, Amaya has gotten ninety-five, and ninety-one twice. That's a huge drop from where she was last week (in the hundreds). The hard thing is that getting those numbers hasn't been easy. To help Amaya reach her numbers I have been massaging her knee, doing stretches, doing exercises and the homework (different exercises that we've been shown throughout the lengthening at physical therapy). I didn't get to do as many as I wanted to yesterday because of the errands we ran, and the accident. But this morning I made sure to do some before our session as well as this afternoon.
     This morning before we left she started asking if she could straighten her leg. I told her no and reminded her that during the day she needs to work on bending it and at night she works on straightening it. I started to time her so that she could see how often she was asking to bend her knee(about every two to three minutes). I told her that I would start my stopwatch and see how long she could go in between bends. She went five minutes the first time and I made her go longer each time. The highest we could get to was fourteen minutes. We did this for the rest of the day. It's hard to explain to her that what feels good (bending her knee) isn't good for her.
     Amaya brought Rosie to physical therapy today and showed off her wrestling outfit and glasses to Melissa and Kim. Kim massaged Amaya's knee then did some leg lifts with the yellow band (just like the one we use at home). Then she used the red band, to make it tougher for Amaya. Next came the stretches and knee bends. It took all three of us again to help hold Amaya down, push the leg, and measure the knee. Amaya was crying, moving, lifting her bottom. She was upset, then started to freaked out and let her emotions get the best  of her. Its so much more difficult when her emotions get the best of her. She tightened her muscles more and made the knee bends more difficult. We were only able to get the knee to eighty nine degrees. Ugh, that's not good. Melissa said we need to hit ninety everyday. Ninety is the magic number. After the knee bends were done, Amaya did some walking. She only walked down the hall and back. She practiced walking and kicking a soccer ball at the same time. As she did that then she started to step over the ball on her own. She didn't feel like doing much else, not even riding a bike or scooter. She was still in pain and upset from the knee bends. She did balance on the trampoline and worked on bends. Unfortunately since she didn't hit ninety degrees earlier we had to try one more time. She was able to get ninety-one, but it didn't come easily. The three of us had to do it again, she was crying and upset. Then Lidie fell off her bike and had a mini-meltdown as well. So if you can just picture both girls crying and screaming and me trying to calm them down. I felt so bad for Melissa and Kim having to deal with our craziness (I'm their mother at least its my job to deal with it). I apologized for the craziness and joked with them asking if they wanted to ride home with us. I'm not sure how I managed to stay calm. I just reminded myself that this moment would pass. And it did. Tomorrow we're going to try to do all the fun stuff first then the stretches and knee bends at the end. Hopefully that will help loosen up Amaya 's knee and make knee bends less painful.
    After all that craziness the girls pulled it together quickly. I gave them water and snacks in the car then we had a talk. They both knew they were out of line and made plans so that tomorrow would be a better day. On the way home we stopped by the mall to exchange Lidie's toy that she had bought with her money from her great grandpa. Her toy broke and she wanted a replacement. After we bought it she reminded me that, that mall had an indoor playground. She asked if she could play, I figured it would be a good way for her to get out some energy, but told her we wouldn't stay too long since Amaya would just have to sit and watch her. But Amaya had another plan. She didn't want to sit and watch, she wanted to get up and play.  I usually don't tell my girls what they can't do. But, today I questioned Amaya. I asked her how she would play, and what would she do. But, I should know better than to tell my girls they can't do something. She asked me to spot her, then she walked, climbed up and down stairs, slid down a slide and made a friend. The play equipment was small and made of foamy material so I wasn't too worried, but I was definitely impressed by her agility, balance and strength. After about fifteen minutes she was tired so we left. When we got home I gave her a chance to relax and watch a movie with Lidie while I massaged her knee. Afterwards I did stretches and our physical therapy homework for about half an hour. Amaya did good then she did her school homework, we had dinner and got ready for bed. She fell asleep by seven thirty and has been sleeping soundly since then (that's a huge improvement from last week).
     Thanks again for reading and following our journey. Keep sending loving thoughts our way; pain is still an issue for Amaya, therapy is tough work, Josh and me are tired, the girls are having so much to deal with. But, like I told someone today, 'considering everything that's going on, we're doing great.'

This is how we started wrapping up Amaya's ankle at night. The towel serves as a bumper and keeps her heel off of the bed to help her bed sore from getting worse and allowing it to heal.

This was this morning after Amaya washed her hands. I had her do some knee bends on the step stool. We're taking advantage of ever chance we get to work that knee.

Here's Rosie with her wrestler outfit. 

You can see her kicking the soccer ball as she was walking down the hall.

Here's Amaya kicking and stepping over the soccer ball.

This is the slide in the indoor playground at the mall. She walked up the stairs on the right and walked down them as well. She also slid down that slide several times too. 

Here's another view of Amaya on the stairs. Walking up the stairs was a good chance for her knee to bend.

This is Amaya's top pin site. I haven't posted any pictures of them lately and wanted to show you how they're doing. Amaya asked me to post the pictures on her blog. She said "so I don't forget what they looked like." Does she really think she'll forget?! These pins use to bother her the most, but are doing well and rarely bother her now.

Here are the middle pins. These are the ones that are currently bothering her the most. They have been having a lot of leakage and drainage which then causes the gauze to stick to the skin. It makes removing them painful for Amaya. We soak them in the shower and add antibacterial soap until the gauze comes loose. We usually have to tug at the gauze to help release it. 

Here are the bottom pins. These still look pretty much the same as when she got out of the hospital. These don't bother her at all, but like all the other pin sites they do feel a bit itchy. Melissa said that it's similar to the feeling you have when a scab is healing. It's "normal" and there's really nothing we can do to help take the itchiness away.

Here is Amaya doing her knee bends at home. She used her right leg to push on the left one and did great. She did ten bends and held them to a count of ten. I only counted the bends that she did when she was able to be both calm and keep her bottom down. She got pretty good bends and I was happy with how far she was able to bend her knee.