A day of birthdays

    Today was Melissa's birthday (the girls got her a plant, card and a donut from her favorite donut shop). Then we had lunch with Grandpa Bobby to celebrate his birthday. It's also uncle Danny's 21st birthday, so happy birthday to him as well. And then we learned that its also Daniel Radcliffe's birthday (the actor who played Harry Potter).  And its one month from Josh's birthday, so we're full of birthdays today.

          After missing four days of therapy we had lots to catch up with Melissa about. The girls told her about the fun they had camping, then we told her about how rough its been to lock the bar in at night (the last two nights have been terrible). Melissa started by stretching the back of Amaya's leg. We're not sure what's causing the tightness back there, but hopefully the stretches help.  After that Amaya did some lunges to bend the knee then rode the bike, then worked on the ladder. Her knee measured at 47 to start, which was higher than Melissa thought it would be after missing four straight days of therapy. I was a bit nervous about how Amaya would do after missing so much (that's the most she's missed in a row since we started back in March. But, I admit it was nice having a break.) Since her knee was so sore and since she missed four days Melissa told Amaya to make 90 her goal for today. In addition to the tightness and night Amaya is also having knee pain throughout the day and needing pain meds more often. In about four minutes Amaya was able to get to 90 degrees. I was relieved that she was able to do it so quickly, although she did seem to feel the stretch a lot more than she had been. Hopefully once we get back to a routine (we'll be trying to do three days a week) then she'll be able to get to her goal more easily. When we got home we did stretch the back of the leg and I'm just about to get her ready for bed and stretch it again. Keep your fingers crossed that there's no pain tonight. (Well, it ended up taking almost an hour to straighten her leg and lock the bar in place. It was very painful for all of us. Amaya was crying and toward the end getting a bit delirious. She started calling me weird and crazy and told me to stop hurting her. Then when dad tried to help she pulled away and said he might break her leg since he's so strong. Between Josh and I we were finally able to lock it in, but now were all worn out. I added two pictures down below to show how far we had to get her knee to straighten). 

Lidie refused to pose, but I had to sneak a picture of her new "Sandy" pants (Sandy for Grease) and cool new high tops. 

Here's Melissa massaging Amaya's thigh, were her tight muscles are. She said she could see and feel them. She suggested that Amaya spent about an hour during the day with her leg straight, and with a weight on the knee to help straighten it.  

 

The girls got to ride bikes today. We did the medium loop. 

Then Amaya climbed up the ladder five times to get a bean bag critter that she then threw. She had asked to do this; its one of her new favorite things to do.

Here's a look at her trying to bend the knee enough to climb up. 

The girls posing with Grandpa Bobby and Nana after lunch.

Here's how far the two bars are that need to be locked in are. It took so much stretching to get them closer (touching her toes, pushing down on her knee, lifting her leg up, etc). 

After about half an hour this is how close we'd gotten. That last little amount was so hard to get. I even thought, what if we can't get it in. I know Dr. Nelson had said that it was okay if we missed a night, but if we did right now, she'd be worse off tomorrow.