29. September 2008 by admin.

The girls left Logan and I this past weekend to go to a pumpkin festival. We had to go to a soccer tournament. Sarah got a workout walking around the festival all day. She had a great time with her friend Marissa. The pictures are below.

 The therapists gave her a splint to wear on her hand at night. It helps keep her fingers straight. Her hand tends to ball up. We try and stay on her about stretching her hand out several times a day. We would like to see some function come back to that hand down the road. The doctors don’t give us much hope, but then they never have. Sarah gets annoyed, but every time I am next to her I try and stretch her fingers. You can feel how tight the tendons and muscles are in her hand.

She goes down to Children’s for a neuropsych test in the morning. This will help assess what she needs from school. It is supposed to take a couple of hours to complete the test. She had one before her first surgery and did very well. She was reading at a high school level back then. It will be interesting to see what level she reads now.  

Sarah and Marissa

More Sarah and Marissa

Sarah and Ava

Riding in Barrels?

Not sure what this reaction is from

Sarah, Marissa, and Michelle (Marissa’s Mom)

Ava being silly while eating ice cream

More barrel fun with Ava and Mommy

Sarah feeding the animals

Ava feeding the animals, but with less enthusiasm

Marissa, Sarah, and Ava

Striking a pose in the parking lot

Nothing is safe with this group behind the wheel

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21. September 2008 by admin.

Sorry for not posting anything in a while, but for the people outside our area we had a nasty wind storm roll through and took down our power for a few days. Some people are still without power. We spent a couple days helping neighbors clean up trees and debris.  

 Sarah has been busy cheering. She got to join her 2nd grade team and cheer at one of the high school games and cheered today for the pee wee football. I do have video which I am going to work on getting up. She is doing so well with everything. I found it a little hard to watch her struggle to use her right arm to cheer. I wish she could get more function back in that arm soon. She tries so hard to use it, but it just isn’t responding the way she wants. There is some movement so that gives us hope.

 Here are some of the pictures as promised.

Sarah got her own parking space at the stadium

Sarah with Jordan

Looking to Shelby for direction

Starting to get into it

getting a little tired

cheering for peewee

more peewee cheering

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14. September 2008 by admin.

All the Madison pee wee cheerleaders got to cheer with the high school cheerleaders at the varsity football game last night. Sarah was able to go down and cheer with our neighbors Jordan and Shelby. They helped her out with the cheers and she had a great time. Of course being the bad parents that we are, we remembered everything but the camera again (I am going to start wearing it around my neck). Some friends took pictures for us so we would have some. I am waiting for those and will post them when I get them. I should have the ones from the coin toss last week very soon too.

We all went to my nephews soccer game today. I was amazed how good Sarah is getting around walking. She is almost up to a normal pace. Her foot still turns a little bit, but she is working hard. The pictures below she has her cane, but we have been leaving it in the car when we go places. Sarah’s therapist has started some kind of shock therapy. It sounds a little harsh, but I don’t think it is that bad. Kim told me that it was just sending signal to the brain to help train it to do things properly. I know, it didn’t make sense to me either. They feel that it will be more beneficial than aqua therapy for now, so her time in the pool will be suspended for a while.

We bought Miley a little pool today. She seems to like water since she always tries to swim in her water bowl. At first she just thought it was just a huge water bowl and was drinking out of it, but she soon warmed up to it (or cooled down with it). Oh….and Ava like it too. 

Trying to talk Miley in to getting in the pool

Ava shows her how to do it

Ava says “forget Miley, this is fun”

Miley starts to get interested

Can’t think of anything clever for this picture

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11. September 2008 by admin.

Sarah started aqua therapy today. She did OK, but she will have to learn that it is work and not play time. We had her in our pool last week and she does very well in the water. Sarah went down the Children’s to see her attending rehab doctor and he was very impressed with her progress. I guess since we see her everyday we are too close to see how far she has come since her surgery.

We got a break from everything Tuesday evening so Sarah went outside with her brother and sister to play. Miley was there too.  

 I know I don’t say this enougn, so thank you to everyone for their ongoing support of Sarah and our family. I can’t imagine where we would be without it. God Bless you all!

Aqua therapy

More aqua therapy

Sarah chasing Miley

Got her!

I guess its close to nap time.

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8. September 2008 by admin.

 Sarah was able to do the coin toss for the Madison Varsity Football game Friday night. She did much better that I thought she would. Doug Lenos of Lenos Photography was gracious enough to take pictures of the whole thing and I am hoping to get them this week to post. She flipped the coin pretty high. When we saw the coin go so high in the air I thought the referee did it for her (We waited on the sideline). I want to mention that Madison won the coin toss.

Sarah’s friend Marissa came over to spend the night on Saturday. We are still a little leery about her staying over at a friend’s house, but we will work on it. Sarah has had no issues going to school or in therapy. She is now getting up and wondering around the house on her own. I get a little worried, but am learning to let her go exploring. Next week is going to be a busy week. She has appointments with Neurosurgery and has to go down to Children’s Hospital for some type of neuro speech evaluation. So I get to take a day off and drive down to my work.  

 Sarah with the Madison Varsity Cheerleaders
(Thank you Doug Lenos)

Sarah, Marissa, and Ava
(we can’t keep clothes on Ava. I guess she is one of those “free spirits”, which scares me)

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5. September 2008 by admin.

Sarah is doing great in therapy and has been walking around all day without her cane. She went clothes shopping with mommy today. We are having trouble with her fitting into her clothes since she hasn’t lost the steroid weight yet. School is going good. The little cough thing that she was doing has decreased in frequency everyday and we have not seen her do it at all today or yesterday, so big Praises to the Lord!!!

We are not sure which game yet, but Sarah is going to do the coin toss for one of the Madison Football games. It will either be tomorrow night or next week. I will have to work with her tomorrow on flipping a coin. Knowing Sarah she will try to do something funny like throw it down the field. I am going to do what I can to get the whole event on video and I will post it.

I was thinking/dreaming today about what it will be like a year or two from now when we get some sense of normalcy back in our lives. I have been thinking a lot about how much I took our routine lives for granted. How I wish I would have spent more time really enjoying activities with my kids (especially Sarah) instead of feeling like dragging them around to everything was an endless chore. I really missed the part of Sarah’s life where she was a normal kid on the soccer field or playing t-ball or just one of the cheerleaders. I was there, but I didn’t pay enough attention to the details.

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3. September 2008 by admin.

Since we had a day off of everything we got in the pool yesterday. Sarah did very well. She was kicking her legs and moving around great. Kim or I would still try to stay within an arm reach of her just in case, but her swim vest doesn’t allow her to sink very much. She is supposed to start some aquatic therapy at Drake soon too. She is walking around a lot without her cane. We are uneasy about it but I feel that we have to let her push her limits sometimes and not try and hold her back because we are afraid of her falling or getting hurt. It is still hard though.

Sarah had her first day back at school today. Her teacher was very pleased with how well she did. She only went half a day. We are working up her stamina before we let her go back to full days, but she did get to eat lunch with her friends before leaving for the day. She has some homework to do too which should be fun but it will challenge her not to get lazy with her school work. Sarah is doing a lot of verbal work since she is not real proficient writing with her left hand yet. We will just keep praying that the Lord keeps the healing going and gives her strength.

One cool chick

Back to School

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