Tuesday 12 April 2011

Top of a big hill - Tuesday 12th April

Each year, Maya's school organise walks up each of the 3peaks-  individually, and then collectively. So, at about 10:45 on Saturday I found myself towards the top of Phen-Y-Ghent, ascending the steep side. The last time I did this, it was as part of "Dynamo Joe's" 3 peaks walk. Which, personally, was one of the highlights of the fundraising - equal in both challenge and reward. I'll admit that i'm not a great one for heights (in fact, im pretty terrible...) but I did it. Last time I was able to just chant "do it for Evan..." over and over again to get me through it, but that obviously didn't apply this time so I had to settle for not being embarrassed by my 8year old little girl.

To get through it, I just concentrated on the next (steep) step - not worrying about what was below, and not thinking about what lay ahead. Which is pretty much what we have had to do over the last week or so. Ev has been very tired (not surprising - he really hasn't had a break since Christmas holidays, and has been through so much) and had struggled for a little bit of motivation, and a couple of PT sessions had been hard work. Sometimes he has looked grey, even transparent in a way.

However, I'm pleased to report that he has picked himself up and last Friday's PT session was a good one and he now has a new "party trick". From being sat on a stool, he can do a "sit-to-stand" without any support, can then balance for 10 seconds, then slowly sit himself back down. Which is awesome, and he still gets that twinkle in his eye when he knows that he is doing something amazing.

He breaks up for Easter on Thursday and we hope he can use the time to re-charge his batteries, as well as have some good days out. During the holidays he will be having his birthday (this Saturday) and his party the 8 days later - where we hope to catch up with some friends that we haven't seen since STL. Will be great to catch up with them all. We are also hoping that he can go from his "double splint" to the "single" version - but a lot of this depends on Ev himself. He has the strength now, but it is the psychological aspect - he has had splints for so many years now and he is clearly nervous about losing this support through the day.

We don't doubt he will be fine though - he's already climbed bigger hills than I ever could...

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