November Update

Poor Jake, he's caught his first cold of the season and it's probably thanks to me. I hate to see him sick, everything just slows down so much. His walking isn't as affected as it has been in the past, but I am really noticing his response time is much slower with this cold. It makes sense, I know my brain slows down when I'm congested so it's going to hit him even harder. We're doing everything we can to help him get over it, so hopefully it won't last too long.

With some of the walking issues he's been having we had a few PT appointments this week. He had taken a break since the end of summer and we had planned on doing a mini-intensive session over winter break. We decided to move that up to see if we could take advantage of the botox he got about a month ago. It was interesting, his PT measured the angle of his foot/ankle to track his progress. She measured it this week and it was the same angle after the botox as it was this summer before botox. What that means is the growth spurt he's going through is affecting the tightness in his foot even more than we thought it was. This round of botox just brought him back to what we thought needed treating this summer. Even with more botox, he can't get his foot all the way flat, it pulls to the outer edge. She's trying some foot taping to help hold it in place but doesn't want to do it too often because tape can be hard on his skin. Not quite sure what our plan will be going forward once the botox starts to wear off again...

He also had to be fit for a new leg brace this week since he's outgrown the one he at the end of  February. Both the orthotic specialist and his PT recommended he get another full leg brace to offer him the extra knee support while he's growing, so that's what we're going with. This one will not be in two pieces like his current one. We didn't end up utilizing the take-apart function to give him the choice of full leg or below the knee, so the new one will be a little more streamlined. I hope it doesn't take too long to come in...that's the hard thing with the braces, they usually take 3-4 weeks. By the time you realize they need a new one, it's getting too small but it takes another month to get here.

Veterans Day Parade

We were so honored to be invited by Adaptive Adventures to be in the Veterans Day Parade today. They are the group that we rode recumbent bikes with this summer at Wash Park and who hosted the day camp at a local lake where Jake got to waterski. They are such an amazing organization giving disabled kids and vets the opportunity to participate in various sports. We took our two bikes and they let us borrow two of theirs. Luke wanted to try the hand cycle, so he and Todd rode those and Jake and I rode ours. They got quite the workout powering their bikes through Denver with just their arms!

I haven't been in a parade since I was in marching band in high school. This was quite a different experience. I was on the verge of tears the entire route seeing all the people along the way who had come out to honor our veterans and were waving flags. I wished we had been able to watch the parade. They organized it by different conflicts in military history: Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, etc., we were in the Desert Storm section. There were so many groups participating and the organizers did a great job taking everyone through our military history. My mom and dad came and said it was a great parade. I was so glad they were there and able to take all these pictures for us. It's not every day you get to ride a recumbent bike on the streets of Denver and go by the capital! You couldn't have asked for a nicer day in November, it really was an amazing experience. I feel very fortunate we were able to participate and help honor our veterans.

I think their dad serving in the Air Force and Air National Guard has definitely had an impact on both the boys, especially as they are getting a little older. Todd was deployed twice since they were born, once when Jake was 3 months old and again in 2009 when Jake was 6 and Luke was 4. We were lucky he was only gone for about three months each time, but I remember it having quite an impression on the boys at the time. Both Jake and Luke are taking part in their respective schools Veterans Day programs this week. 

I would like to thank all the veterans and active military for your service and sacrifice to protect our country.