thursday evening

thursday is one of gen's jam-packed days, so we have been busy since early this morning. in pool therapy gen did arm exercises, standing, taking steps, etc. the steps are a new addition to her pool arsenal. we were barely back to street clothes when the ot was here for the e-stim session. gen worked on computer use with the e-stim today, first with the right hand and then with the left one. she was supposed to have ot for an hour and a half, straight through till pt, but courtney gave her a short break between 11 and 11:30. then she practiced driving in pt. she was able to negotiate the set-up obstacle course in the gym, even with the speed set a little higher than she has ever used. she is getting more and more control over her hands. ot came in again during lunch and helped her work on eating. she did very well at that too. immediately after ot, gen had speech. katie had her work more on emphasizing one word in a phrase (ex: he lives in a green HOUSE/he lives in a GREEN house). she also worked on "g","d","t"...working on making them sound, even when they are in the middle or the end of a word. she also worked on making a noticeable break in sound between words in a phrase (ex: "i'm tired" instead of "imtired").
at 2:30 gen got back onto the treadmill. she went faster today (1.7 mph) and they lowered the amount of support from 35% to 30% of her weight. she walked 6-7 times (she walks a few minutes and then stands still to rest, walks again, then sits to rest.) the first time she did this, she only walked 4 times and rested between each set. she did a really good job of holding herself up and keeping her legs from collapsing. she had another speech session after that, and she worked on loudness and conversation. we had her talk to someone again who isn;t used to her speech, and she understood her. gen's completely wiped out now, and ready to sleep. i'll let her sleep a little late in the morning, since her first session isn't till 10:30. we are so grateful for the blessings from God every day. there is nothing quite like the knowledge that we can trust our lives to Him and can know that He is faithful and true.
susan