Sleeping in, bike riding and athlete's, Oh My!

Well, much to my pleasure and surprise, Alistair had a restful night. He slept all night with very minimal waking. The nurse came in at 5am to do some things, which woke up Alistair. I thought for sure he wouldn't go back to sleep, but he did and slept in until 7:30. Once he was awake, we had to get dressed and into his chair so that he was ready for his OT at 8am. Together they worked on getting out a shirt from the drawer and putting it on. Then they headed down the hall to the day room where they worked on eating via self-feeding, something Alistair has become more insistent on doing lately. His speech therapist met us in the day room and she and Alistair worked on some different sounds while playing a game. This morning he began to try to talk. He speech is off and on discernible, although as the day wore on his talking went away and he was back to mostly answers choice questions or using his alphabet board. But it was so great to hear him trying. When he got back from speech, some friends stopped by to deliver some goodies and say Hi. Alistair suggested we take them around to show them some of our favorite things to do and then requested his friend push his wheelchair for him. When they got back, it was time for PT, something Alistair was really looking forward to as yesterday she had mentioned riding the bike. First she fitted him for a different and lighter wheelchair. Then we got him into the bike and he peddled all over the 5th floor and spent about 30 minutes riding around. He seemed to have fun and also got some good stretches through his legs doing it! 

                     

Nana and Papa, Gillian and Natalie came up to visit today. They brought up lunch and we ate out on the patio. Natalie and Gillian were being off and on silly and Alistair was having a grand old time watching and laughing at and with them. Other than not speaking, it was like having regular old Alistair at the table! He worked on eating his lunch himself while we ate and occasionally used his alphabet board to communicate statements or jokes! When we got back to the room, we were told there were some Sounder players in the room next door and wondered if Alistair would like to meet them. He said yes and they came by. We met Cristian Roldan, who plays midfield, and Darwin Jones, who plays attack. It is both their first season and both played for UW. Go Dawgs! They chatted with us for a couple, signed some cards for Alistair as well as Natalie and Gillian and posed for photos. Really nice guys!

                     

After that excitement, Seth and I took off for our weekly family conference with the care team. It was SO different than last week. To their credit, last week was 4 days into therapy when they made their goals and recommendations. But after the past week, they were so optimistic and excited at the progress Alistair has made. They have lofty goals and high hopes for him. We asked about the discharge date they had dictated last week and the attending shook her head and said it wasn't accurate based on the progress he has made and the anticipated trajectory of it. She feels his stay will go into September as a longer length of stay will help him progress much further in his recovery and maybe get him to the point of walking out of the hospital. This was more in line with what we were thinking when we entered this program, as far as length of stay, and wasn't surprising to hear her say it but was actually comforting that they weren't getting ready to boot him! Now this doesn't mean we are excited about being at Children's into September and means we have to deal with chaos for a bit longer. But in this scenario, it is a good thing to take the time and endure the chaos. 

We had a bit of down time this afternoon. Then we were informed that a group of kids on the unit were all in the day area playing video games. There are 5 boys between the ages of 8 & 11 on the unit. So Alistair wanted to join them and we obliged. He ended up playing Wii while they were all playing Minecraft together. Alistair currently lacks the dexterity to handle an Xbox remote, but can do a Wii remote pretty easily. Plus he can't communicate, so doing Minecraft with them was hard. But I think he liked being around the other kids who all had wheelchairs or other medical equipment attached to them; even if he wasn't chatting them up. It was also nice to chat with the other parents and kind of commiserate with them. As we were getting ready to head back to the room, Alistair's OT brought in her therapy dog, Lilly, to visit him. She is a golden retriever and very sweet. Alistair is definitely getting the hook-ups on dog therapy and loves every minute!

Tonight we hung out together and had dinner while we watched cartoons. Seth's first day back at work went well. He will go back tomorrow and then we are to the weekend. The next step is figuring out how next week will work as Gillian will be home, Piper will be home and we all need to be a family again. We will think about some good stratgeies as well as call upon local people to help us with some logistics. Considered yourself warned!