May 29th

Ashley has continued to build strength in her legs. She has certainly gotten past the point where she is merely controlling the tone in her legs. She is now exerting more control over her knees and will stand up straight when asked. While we still use her standing frame which she can stay in comfortably for over a half hour, we are finding whenever we transfer Ashley from one spot to another (i.e. her chair to a sofa) we are standing with her longer and merely providing balance.

We are waiting to get an email of some video from a therapist that shows Ashley ‘walking’ with the aid of other therapists. If we can figure out a way to post it to the blog we will do so. It will certainly bring cheers from the viewers.

Ashley ran a slight temperature for a couple days last week and was a little sluggish because of it, but she did not require a doctor’s visit and seems just fine. As such I think we can still say Ashley has been illness free since being home. That is very significant since illnesses during her inpatient stays would negatively affect her progress.

In late May you wouldn’t think this would be an issue, but it has; and that is getting out for more walks. It has been cooler than normal (hopefully a trend that is ending) and we haven’t spent as much time outside. That doesn’t mean Ashley has not been outside. Over the holiday weekend Ashley took to a lawn lounger and supervised our yard work. We just thought it we would be having family dinners each night in the screened in porch and making more laps around the neighborhood by now.

Ashley continues to enjoy visits from her friends and her most active blog commenter, Emily is reading a novel to Ashley on her visits. During a therapy session that topic came up and a therapist said she had read the book, but forgot the name of the female lead character. No problem; she was able to get Ashley to tell her by going through the alphabet.