Dylan's progress lately is AMAZING!!! I think he surprises his therapists on a daily basis. We have seen him do some things we weren't aware he could do. We saw his occupational therapist, the one who teaches him how to shower, comb his hair, brush his teeth...,on Saturday morning and she had him getting out of bed and into the wheelchair with hardly any assistance from her. She said he was doing 95% of the work and she was really only there in case he lost his balance. We didn't even know he could transfer himself like that! Then he has been walking, with minimal assistance, on a platform walker, it's a walker with a brace that he can hold onto at chest level, all over the gym and downstairs. He's doing so good they want to move him to another rehab facility quicker than originally planned. Dan and I are trying to figure out what's best for Dyl right now, we were originally told that he would need 3 to 5 years of intensive therapy and it hasn't even been

one year yet... we'll see what happens. He's able to shower himself and get to and from the toiled pretty well now. They are still working on that a bit but he's doing good. His toe is waay better now, the nail is growing back and it seems to be good. He's always very excited to go outside and to the park, we've been doing that the last couple of weekends since it's finally cooling off. He likes to sit under the trees and watch the people in the park.

 

They are having a big Halloween party on Sunday, we got Dyl a costume and he's really excited to do the trunk-or-treat they have set up. His blood sugar seems to be leveling out pretty well too and his meals seem to be portioned to match the insulin he's getting for coverage he's happy because it's waaaay bigger portions than they were giving him so he's not hungry all the time and he has more energy for therapy and just the day in general. 

We are trying to get into contact with the nutritionist too so we can see what kind of meals they would want us to prepare for him when he gets home...we also have to get a ramp installed at the front door and a few other modifications to the house before he can come back home. We are hoping to start working on that sooner versus later they also have to send someone from phoenix out to inspect to make sure the house is user-friendly for Dylan before he can come home. The doorways need to be wide enough for a wheelchair and he needs to be able to access the bathroom and kitchen. I am hoping to speak to a therapist from Barrow's soon to find out exactly what kind of time-frame Dylan has when he gets there for therapy, they are saying 3 weeks and then he's released home...that seems awfully quick, but we have to find out the details. Dan is thinking that if we can keep Dyl where he is into March or April then move him to more intensive therapy after he has time to really build on the skills he's learning now that would be better. He's not voluntarily talking too much at this point, we usually have to ask him questions to get him to talk to us, and he's not walking on his own yet and they haven't gotten him totally toilet trained yet so we want to wait until all that's complete before we move him so that he's not trying to accomplish everything at once in a really short period of time. 

His right side really seems to be coming on well too, they have a new wheelchair that he controls pretty well with his arms and legs. He's getting to the point where he goes all over the facility on his own. The staff said that he gets into the elevator and goes downstairs sometimes when he's bored and they found him stuck in the opening one day, the wheel wouldn't budge, but he still goes all over the place it's good that he's more mobile and doesn't sit in his room all day!! We are thinking of having them restrain the left arm for therapy a little bit to really get the right arm going quicker, but we aren't sure yet...have to talk to therapy more about that ~Keri