Therapy Update

Jake is definitely healing in his own time and in his own way. Generally muscles come back biggest to smallest and legs before arms, while nerve recovery works its way down the limbs. He has been having some amazing left hand movement and is starting to use some gross motor skills to pick things up and his grip literally gets stronger every day. But oddly, he has not as much arm rotation from the elbow down to the wrist.

He made some really good progress today with his hamstring and is able to push the leg out, pull it back in and can lay on his stomach and bend his leg to touch his behind. He can also (with assistance) stand to get out of bed and pivot to get in his wheelchair. But so far there has been very little movement at the left ankle. Getting the ankle engaged is obviously key for walking. They currently have him walking but it's with considerable support from two therapists, one to support his trunk and one to help move his legs. His core and back strength have really improved as well and he is sitting for much longer periods and is very stable.

Jake's sleep is also making slow improvements. Last night we got two bigger chunks of sleep instead of one big one and several 1-2 hour chunks. I'm hoping we are on the verge of a good solid 8 hours.


Over the past week, we have had a couple of meetings with the medical staff to discuss Jake’s tentative release date from the hospital. The primary criteria will be that he is able to safely function both physically and mentally around the house. Things such as maneuvering around the house, taking care of his own personal needs, reacting to situations appropriately (not touching a hot stove, turning water off when done), etc. They initially set the date as July 31st, but today moved it out to Aug 7th because they felt that an additional week would make a big difference. Again, this date is “tentative” and will continue to be adjusted as necessary. To be honest, the Aug 7th date seems to us to be very optimistic based on Jake’s current very limited mobility. It’s hard to imagine that in just a little over four weeks, he’ll be able to safely function in a home environment. However, this is much shorter than the 8-12 weeks were initially given. But, like we’ve been doing ever since the beginning, we’ll just take it one day at a time.  We haven’t mentioned anything to Jake about a release date because nothing is certain yet and we don’t want to set an expectation that turns out to be unattainable.

I also wanted to mention something about the Team Jake shirts I posted a few ago. I've heard that some of you would like to order one, so please email me directly and I'll get you the pricing and sizing info. We'll be placing another order on Monday, July 15th. My email is dkmorg@gmail.com.

Specific Prayer Requests:
1. Continued improvement in Jake's sleep.
2. Waking up and engagement of the left ankle and lower left arm.