Beach trip

     Amaya had another good night and good day. We left her wheelchair at home today to make room in the trunk for some beach stuff. So at the chiropractor and at therapy she either walked with her walker or alone. When we checked in at therapy the lady asked, "name?" but as she looked up she smiled, then said, "oh, never mind. I know you, you come here every day." I smiled back and said, "yes, yes we do." I can't believe we've been going there for four months now, Monday thru Friday. After Amaya's work we started bends. Her knee was at 56 to start. Amaya had a goal of 106 for today, but her knee was really tight today and after five minutes she was only able to get 100 degrees (which is still really good). Melissa said that she could tell her knee was a bit tight today (who knows why, each day is different). Melissa was happy with the 100 and was proud of Amaya for working so hard. 

Amaya started by walking on the balance beam forward then backward. Then she stepped over the balance beam. 

Melissa had her try to climb up the ladder. She only had her go up the first two steps then back down. She needed some spotting and help moving her leg and bending her knee. But, considering that this was her first time trying it she did pretty good. On the last step down Melissa had her do ten lunges on the last step.

Then Amaya did some bends with the band. She straightened and bent her knee. Those are the same stretches we do at home.

While Amaya worked Lidie built a zoo. She's built one everyday and is having lots of fun doing it. Today I got to play with her a bit. She told me that she had a wheelchair at her zoo for people who need it. Today the pig needed it because he "got hurt, but don't worry he doesn't need surgery. He'll get better."

Next Melissa gave Amaya a choice, "bike or train?" Amaya choose train. When she first got on she went really fast, but Melissa had to stop her because she was pushing with her hip instead of bending her knee and pushing with it. Then Amaya moved a bit slower she was able to concentrate on bending the knee more. 

This picture is a bit blurry, but I love the determined look in Amaya's eyes. She was tired by the time she was done and needed some water.

After therapy we headed down to the beach. We've been wanting to go for some time now and since Josh had the week off we figured we'd go. We'll be going beach camping in a couple of weeks with family friends and we wanted to test and see how Amaya would do at the beach. Would she be able to swim? How do we keep the sand out of the pins? How will we clean it? etc.. As soon as we set our stuff off they were off. They had big plans of building sand castles. We only planned on being there for a little bit so we didn't bring our suits; which worked out well because it was a bit on the chilly side and the waves were pretty rough so Amaya wouldn't have been able to swim in them anyway, or Lidie for that matter. 

Although the plan was to not get wet, they all managed to get wet. Thankfully I had enough foresight to prepare for that and had extra clothes. Amaya had so much fun jumping in the waves and was out there for about half an hour. She didn't fall once, which I was a bit worried about. Although as she was building a sandcastle she did fall once. And yes, she did get plenty of stares, but mostly of wonder and amazement at what she was doing, which didn't bother me too much.

She had lots of fun playing in the sand. Notice the sweater, she was cold and had to put it on. 

As for wondering how to keep sand out of the pins and off the gauze? You don't. At least we didn't. If anyone knows how we'd love to hear it. I had asked other PFFD families for any tips, but didn't get any for sand only pool swimming. So we're just figuring it out as we go along.

This was before she decided to lay on her tummy and play. I just smiled, but was screaming "ah!" in my head wondering how in the heck I was suppose to clean that off. We rinsed her fixator off with ocean water then changed her clothes and left the gauze on. At home we showered her off like normal and it got all the sand off. There were a couple of small sand grains in her middle pins, but they came off with a q-tip, soap and water. Thankfully when we go beach camping they have a shower there. Melissa told us that the good thing is that her pins are still draining so that'll help get any sand out that gets in. Also she suggested using a syringe type thing to wash out the pin sites. Dr.Nelson had told us that swimming in the ocean was good for her pin sites, but we forgot to ask him about the sand. He said that people who swim in the ocean everyday have less pin site infections.

Dad and Lidie got some one on one time as Amaya played on/in/with the sand.

Josh managed to get a picture of his and Lidie's footprints just as a wave was coming to wash it away.

As Josh and I sat and watched the girls play Josh said, "look how comfy she looks." I smiled, she did look so comfy and was able to just be a kid and have fun. 

Here's a close up of the girls busy playing. You can see Amaya laying on her tummy playing. We had a great day. The girls were worn out, but managed to stay awake the entire drive home. Unlike myself who slept for about an hour. It seems that I'm always getting either poor sleep, no sleep or interrupted sleep and I feel like I've been tired for four months straight. Well it's almost midnight so I better go to bed, because I'm sure I'll be tired tomorrow morning. Good night and once again, thank you for your love and support.