Summer Break

Even though school got out six weeks ago, we are finally starting our summer break and not a minute too soon. The past six weeks have been full of no less than 15 hours a week of therapy/appointments (including drive time) and we are all whooped.

Jake had his annual post-stroke appointments, gait lab analysis, and botox all down at Children's Hospital. He's also had several sessions of  OT, stretch, neuro-feedback, and a couple sessions of PT. Add in there a few trips to the chiropractor and getting his braces off (that was one he was very excited about!). And finally this past Thursday we went down to Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs for his driving evaluation.

It's so hard to find balance in the summer. It's such a great opportunity to fit in extra therapies, but we also recognize the need for down time. I tried really hard to have a few days a week where we didn't have any appointments, but that meant doubling and tripling up on other days.  He was almost in tears a few weeks ago talking about losing another summer to appointments due to his stroke, so we decided to cancel everything for the last month of summer before school starts and give him a full break.

A couple of these appointments were biggies - the gait lab analysis and the driving evaluation. Since he had surgery on his foot last summer and has been in pretty intensive PT for the better part of a year, they wanted to re-evaluate his gait. We have obviously seen the improvement, but it was nice to get the official report that the surgery was definitely a success and they are really pleased with the outcome. It was pretty remarkable to see how much better he walked barefoot without his brace this time compared to last. When we went over a year ago, he could hardly put any weight on his left foot and he had this very painful looking hop shuffle he did while walking. This time he was able to put weight on the left foot and is much closer to spending equal time on each foot when walking. The only real concern now is that he doesn't get his left knee entirely straight when walking, it stays flexed at about 20%. They've suggested a new brace to see if it will help.

Due to some of the lingering issues from his stroke, he had to get a driving evaluation prior to being allowed to get his drivers permit in December. While it's still several months away, we wanted to do it this summer so he could start the 30 hours of required driver's ed training without trying to fit it in during school. Our two biggest concerns were his loss of vision (he has no vision on the left half of both eyes) and general response time. I was really impressed at how well he did on several of the items they evaluated him on, especially since he has no prior driving skills to draw on. They did have some concerns with his vision, which really wasn't a surprise. They suggested some vision therapy to help with scanning and it's just going to take more work to teach him how to accommodate when he's driving. They gave him the go ahead to move forward with the permit. Yea! He'll have to go back once he has his permit to do some additional work in a car to see what, if any, adaptations need to be made. It was a good day! I was so afraid they were going to tell him no and he'd have to wait until he was older which would have been a horrible blow.

We have managed to find time to fit in some fun stuff too...trips to the pool, a couple of long bike rides (he has a goal to do a 10 mile ride before summer is over), rock climbing, bowling, Elitches, lots of time on his drums, and hanging out with the neighbor kids. This last month of summer, we're looking forward to some day outings, a jam session with friends, a weekend in Glenwood Springs, many more days at the pool and lots of bike rides.