August 29, 2014 Happy Labor Day Weekend Everyone!

Friday Greetings from Red Wing, MN!

Jake is continuing to make great strides with his personal social, emotional and physical development skills. Brace number #3 was removed today and he had an opportunity to wear two new tennis shoes for the first time during PT- and engage in several PT activities. These activities included the following:

• Starting the process of using the stationary sit down bike with his hands and feet,
• Working on standing up from his wheelchair to a standing position utilizing most of his core and arm strength to push himself up in the chair and then sitting back down with assistance/guidance,
• Wheeling himself in his wheelchair independently to and from his room, to the lunch room, and to the PT room,
• And the big accomplishment today was using the parallel bars in PT to support and balance himself to stand up and take several steps, and working on trying to stand up tall to regain a normal posture stance.

Jake was sooooooo enthusiastic for these successful PT accomplishments this week and last week. He could not stop talking about his positive progress. With all of these great successful strides towards healing and getting stronger- Jake is also experiencing much more cognitive awareness of what he can do independently for himself, speaking more fluently, sharing memories and experience that he can now recall, and attention to detail of sequencing skills for his daily living tasks that he is highly verbalizing. The physical therapy department told us with more physical activity of beginning to walk and stand and getting back to normal day to day living skills, his cognitive awareness would be heightened and strengthened- and yes indeed they have been!

This Labor Day weekend Jake has many plans to visit with family and friends which also includes a few special outings. Jake is getting very excited about coming home. He constantly talks about it and the amount of quality time he will get to spend with his brother's, sister-in-laws, and niece Maddy and especially his best friends of Jake, Shane, Kevin and Devon. We are so excited for him as parents, and that we can meet his special development, his physical and emotional needs to provide the best possible care to regain his independence and restart a new chapter in his life.