We had a pretty calm day yesterday. Since it was a holiday we didn't have therapy, and since I took a much needed three hour long nap I didn't get to do all the therapy homework I wanted to do with Amaya. Amaya read through her journal that people wrote in for her love party (a party we threw for her before her surgery). She loved reading all the well wishes, kind words, encouragement and praise. She said, "It's beautiful. I love it." Later we went to go watch fireworks with some friends and that was very nice. It was another late night and we had to skip her shower.
This morning I gave her her shower and even though she didn't do a lot of therapy yesterday she still had a lot of scabs and gunk. It seems like her pin sites are having a lot of drainage lately, and I'm not sure why. We had the morning off and therapy at two in the afternoon, a nice treat after a late night. As we pulled into therapy we had a few minutes so we listened to the Eye of the Tiger twice. As we listened to it I heard some lyrics that caught my attention, "went the distance now I'm not gonna stop." I told Amaya, "hey, that's you." You went the distance, got your full eight cm. and haven't stopped, you're continuing on working hard at therapy everyday. She smiled then got up and came over and hugged me. Then she said, "mom, without your help I'd still be at the beginning." Awe, man, that was so sweet. I didn't know whether to smile or cry, so I did a little bit of both.
Today we worked with Jay at therapy because Melissa had an eye doctor appointment. Jay did some of the stuff that Melissa had been working on. Amaya had a goal of 110 today, but I told her to do her best because I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get that since she was off yesterday and we had Jay today (it's always a little different with a new therapist). After her work Jay only had time to measure Amaya's knee and let her do a few pushes to try to get a bigger bend. She started in the mid 50's and got up to 70 in a couple of minutes, but she was only able to get to 70 degrees. Not because her knee was stiff, but because we ran out of time. Melissa sees us for forty five minutes, but Jay only saw us for thirty. Those fifteen minutes make such a big difference. He had to go see his next patient so we had to settle for a 70 today. Amaya was pretty disappointed and frustrated, even a bit mad. I tried to explain that it wasn't any one's fault, just how it worked out today. But she was still disappointed because she's wanting to get to 110 so badly. And because 70 is far from 106 (where she was on Tuesday). I told her to be thankful that she did get to work her knee well so that tomorrow she'll be able to get a higher number. We had also done our pt homework stretches in the morning and some before bed so I'm sure tomorrow will be a better number (one that she can be happy with).
We decided to take a family walk tonight after dinner. It's the first time since the surgery; every time we had asked the girls were too worn out to go, or it was too cold to go out. I was so glad the girls wanted to go and get out of the house and enjoy the fresh air, the view, the breeze and all the nature around them (they found hummingbirds, blue jays, feathers, squirrels, ants, trees, dirt, sticks, scat, etc.)
Amaya started on the total gym and did thirty leg presses. She seemed to do these with ease today.
Next she walked over the colorful half balls (we call them gum drops or rocks) ten times. Each time Jay had to guide her foot and help it bend to get over the balls.
Jay had Amaya step up on the stair. He put the colored balls as a boundary for her, so that she would keep her leg straight as she bent it up to go on the step.
On our evening walk we were able to enjoy the view of Lake Gregory below. It was such a calm beautiful evening. Lidie didn't want to be in the picture so she's off on the side hiding.
I caught Amaya and my shadow as we walked. Since it was a long walk (about a mile she rode in the wheelchair instead).
Here's Lidie getting a ride on dad's shoulders on the way back.
Today we got our batch of gauze in the mail. This is the second time I've had to order gauze. The last batch was ordered in April and lasted us until now, before that we had some gauze that we got at Dr.Nelson's office. We found a site that mailed it for free shipping which was nice (AllegroMedical.com). All that you see above (3 rolls of tape, 11 gauze rolls and 12 boxes of 25 packs of gauze bandages) was fifty three dollars. All the gauze is sterile (as Dr.Nelson recommended). Hopefully that will last us until the fixator comes off. I normally just use the gauze bandages for the top two sites and the gauze rolls for the bottom pins, but I plan on using the rolls at the beach and after swimming so I got more of those than I would normally get. I still need to get some waterproof tape, but our local walmart
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