Earning a Day Off

Jake has been working so hard in therapy that he earned himself a day off on Sunday! This is only the second full day off he's had in the past four weeks (the other was July 4th). He pushes himself so hard, even when he's exhausted. The past few days they've had him standing for over 20 minutes per session, doing squats to pick things up and the support he needs from the therapists is less and less. He really is getting stronger every day.  He also loves to show anyone new who comes to the hospital how well he can stand by himself too. It's so cool to see how proud he is of this major accomplishment.

Jake has met several other kids on the floor either because they room near us or are in his school group. Two have been discharged this week and two more are going home next week. I was worried that them leaving was going to be hard on him because of the "why do they get to go home and I don't" syndrome. But surprisingly, I think it gives him hope he'll actually get to go home one of these days. Three of the four were on the rehab floor before us and had a lot to overcome. He has seen them improving over the weeks, just like he is, and they are now well enough to leave. In so many ways, we are extremely thankful that he's already come along as far as he has. We see a lot of kids here on the floor who are in far worse shape or have had injuries/accidents that will leave them permanently disabled. It's truly heartbreaking. There are three boys 4, 7, and 11 who due to accidents are now paraplegics. It makes Jake struggling to learn to walk again feel like a blessing. He still has a long way to go, but I truly believe he will regain full function with time.

This was his first week attending school group. It's a group of 5-6 kids that meet for 45 minutes twice a week. The idea behind it is to get them ready to deal with "school-like" situations and interacting with other kids. They spend so much time in the hospital around adults, it's important to socialize with their peers. They spent time recognizing what they were feeling and what others are feeling based on their facial expressions. They then used instruments to demonstrate on a scale of 1-5 how strongly they were feeling or how strongly the emotion was being demonstrated. A lot of times with brain injuries, kids can have a hard time recognizing emotions in themselves and others. They also get easily distracted and then have a hard time returning to the task at hand. The psychologist who leads the group said he did really well and was pleased with what she observed.

Thank you for continuing to pray for Jake's recovery and healing. His progress really is amazing and it's so exciting to look back at the end of each week and see how much he's accomplished.