Tuesday 15 February 2011

7... - Day 24 - Mon 14th Feb

On the way back home from PT, in yet another gloriously sunny St Louis day (who'da thought it...), I realised that this was the number of hours of PT that we had left. Doesnt really seem that much - even with the progress that  Ev made last week and the more positive experience of sunday.

First thing in the morning, Ev did a real good set of stretches but he was still unsure on his frame. (see below).

 Before looking at this clip, please note it's not a particular happy one, but is relevant later on....



The PT session itself was good, however as Mike let Ev do a bit more himself (such as not holding onto him as much on the treadmill) it had the feeling that he was taking a small step backwards. Even though I know this isnt the case. In fact, we have a couple of goals (which I dont really want to disclose here) but Mike thinks we are still on track. We were also provided with his new braces during this session so we had a shoe shopping trip to sort out.

So, in the afternoon, we popped down to Footlocker, and we picked up a pair of sneakers ("sneakers" ? ~ well, when in Rome...) that fitted over Ev's new braces. My homework for the afternoon was to try and be a little less "hands-on" with his walker so that he could both build up his strength and confidence on it. Working under the subterfuge of doing the laundry (the lengths a parent will go to...) I got Ev to walk down the hall on his frame. This is literally a distance of no more than 5 meters. However, I got him to stand still and tall on his frame while I went back to the room for the washing then again for the detergent. Then also got him to stand still in the laundry room while I put the washing in.

Mike had explained that his braces would help - but I didnt realise this much.... ! Totally different from the attempt earlier in the day.

So far, so good and I felt that I had probably got a B+ for my homework. However, Ev now knew what he could do. So when I opened the laundry room door for him, he was off. So I left him to it. He took a few steps on his own, and was soon counting the number of steps - which was now 90, 91, 92,.... I dashed for the camera and managed to get the following clip.



I was amazed, gobsmacked, dumbfounded. In the end, he got to 152 steps and already has his sights set on 200 tomorrow. I think we might well have an "A" for our homework....

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