GREAT AND WONDERFUL NEWS!!!!

Yesterday Matt took and pen and wrote his name on a piece of paper at therapy. Amazing right?!! So last night we did the same thing and he took the sharpie pen and wrote his name, then his dad asked him to wright my name. He did, and he continued to wright his moms name, his dads name and Brit's name. It was amazing! We all had to keep the tears from flowing. It was such a relief to see him do this and just breath taking. I just kept praising him and telling him to look at what he was doing! I grabbed his face and kissed him then as I went to hug him he lifted his arm up and wrapped his hand around my head and squeezed me. I just buried my face in his neck. I didn't want to let go. I just kept saying how proud I was of him and how excited I am to see his improvements everyday. It doesn't matter how bad of a day your having or what went right or wrong, when I come home and see him and see everything that he is doing new today it washes everything else away.

Matt has such a strong ability to read into what we are all thinking and feeling. If I'm having a bad day he can totally read that and he gets into a frump. If you go and have a talk with him about whatever, he listens and takes it all in. I try and have talks with him about his recovery and how important it is for him to never give up hope of having a full recovery about once a week. Every single day Matt continues to make more and more improvements. So far this first month of the new year has been very exciting and I can't wait to see what the next few months will bring for his recovery.

January 24th, 2009

The other day I started playing catch with Matt. I was tossing a balloon to Matt and he would catch it against his chest. He would get a hold of it then hand it back to me. I was tossing it in all different directions so he would actually move his whole arm to get it. He did this with me for a while.
On Monday he didn't want anything to do with the therapist so hopefully today he will participte more. He really likes showing them he can use a spoon all by himself! He's starting to become more aware of what's going on so he likes to do things himself and a lot of times he doesn't want to do childish things. This is good though. Things are healing more and more in his brain.
It looks like Matt will be doing speech, PT, and OT every Monday and Wednesdays. Now he'll have Fridays off from driving down the hill. Once Spencer gets back he will probably have Spencer back on Fridays and Sundays. All this therapy is really paying off.
The next thing his parents are looking into is getting him a new bed. One of his therapists said that Matt should be going through the process of getting his legs on the side of the bed, putting his feet on the ground and participating in moving his body to the wheel chair from the bed. Its important that he does not become dependent off of the sling or the wheel chair. So we have been having Matt do things by himself such as, brushing his teeth, shaving, brushing his hair, drinking water from a spoon, picking out what shirt he wants to wear, all these things are so good for his brain recovery. And it gives him control so he doesn't feel like we are doing everything for him.
A few more months of therapy and who knows where we will be by then. So exciting!!!

January 17th, 2008

More great and exciting news!!!! Today Matt was in his standing frame and was holding his head up again. Later his parents were feeding him water from a spoon to help him get use to swallowing. As they were bringing up the spoon Matt grabbed it and decided he wanted to do it himself. So he continued to take the spoon and scoop up water and bring it to his mouth. He did this over and over again! Amazing right?!?!
Just wanted to update everyone!! And share the great news!

January 16th, 2008

Today was such a great day! Matt did such an amazing job at therapy today! I'm still just in awe of everything. As PT was moving him from the wheelchair to the bench, they had him sitting and he just held his head up all by himself. No help with the sholders or anything. I couldn't believe it, that was the first time I had ever seen that while he was sitting. Another thing he did was we stretched his arms out onto a large ball and had him roll it forward and backward. I say in front holding his hands to the ball and rolled in toward me. Then we asked him to pull it back. He did awesome pulling it back and with a little help he started getting better with pushing too. After doing 10 reps of that we leaned him back against the wedge support, his head was thrown forward, so we asked him to pull his head back towards the wedge so he could see everything. Slowly he pulled his head back up!! It was amazing! I started clapping and yelling praises! I was so excited! Matt was so much more alert and focused, even the PT noticed a change in him. Then we went to the bicycle! I was so excited to see him in action. As soon as we got his feet on the petals Matt was ready to go! And he just went! It was so cool to watch as he just kept going. His mom and I just kept telling I'm to go faster. And he did!
I was so glad that I was able to be there today to see how much progress he is making. I'm so proud of him and all his hard work. Oh, oh, oh!!! I almost forgot, Matt also is starting to move his head from side to side. Especially now with his glasses. So many good things!!!
Keep it up Matt!!! We love you!!

January 15th, 2008

Matt continues to work really hard when he's at Sharpe. He didn't have therapy yesterday due to a shortage of therapists but he'll be back friday and I get to go with so I'm really excited to see him on the bicycle! I keep telling him ill be there so he has to show me how fast he can go.
Tuesday Matt finally got his glases! I think he looks very handsome in them. I tell him he looks like a college professor. You can tell how much more Matt focuses with them on. Must be so much easier for him to see things. Yesterday they had Matt in his standing frame with his glasses on and he held his head up all by himself. He was standing for 45 minutes! He continues to hold his head and neck up more and more. Like Spencer said we need to accomplish one thing at a time, and it looks like Matt might be there with the accomplishment of holding his head up.
Something that Matt does with me that just makes My heart leap out of My chest is he'll grab My hand or arm If I look like I'm getting up to leave. He'll just look at me and grab my arm as if he was telling me don't go. Another thing he'll do is If I'm laying in bed with him ill just rest My arm by his side and he'll move his hand to mine so we can hold hands. Last night I leaned over and kissed him on his cheek and said I love you. He reached his arm up and placed his hand on My face. I swear he can read my mind. He knows everytime I need his touch. Its like he's reassuring me that everything will be ok. He knows me all too well.

January 12th,2008

So today Matt will head back to Sharpe today for OT, PT and his his first day of speech therapy!! I really wish I could be there today. Matt continues to do really well on the bicycle, each time he goes longer and he goes faster. Is legs are getting really strong and its not just his right leg either. He's really pushing his left leg. His eye glasses should be arriving any day now so that will be another good thing for him as well. I really think Matt will be more responsive once he can see clearly. It must be so irritating seeing double or even triple, and try to concentrate on doing things at the same time.
As soon I get all the info from his appointment today I will write more. :)

January 8th, 2008

Exciting news!! Well this year for matt has started off really good. He started back at Sharp rehab on Monday, he also had an evaluation with Kaisers speech therapy. It was a very busy day for him. Let's start with speech first...so again we were told that kaiser doesn't really have experience with patients like Matt, but she was able to give us good ideas on how to strengthen matts tongue muscles. She also said it was a good idea to continue feeding Matt through his mouth a few times a day little bits at a time. We stressed to her that sharp is able to get Matt to the next step and out of what we call the grey area (which kaiser doesn't know). Then we can take him back to speech at kaiser and they can take over. Our fingers were crossed as we continued to make our way to sharp for Pt. While we were at pt we got a call from kaiser saying Matt had been referred to sharp for speech!!!! Praise God for that! So he starts Monday!
Now with pt he's still I think getting use to the way they do things there. but he is still being responsive. in fact yesterday he rode a bicycle!! I'm sure all your mouths just dropped like mine did when his mom told me last night. What they did was pulled a bicycling machine up to his wheel chair that strapped his feet on the petals. They set it on a timer and Matt started pedaling! If he slowed down they would just tell him to speed up and keep going! And sure enough he did! He went 16 minutes of cycling! The therapists said its one thing you'll never forget how to do. His OT had him putting objects through holes in a board. He does very well with that as well as pointing out colors, pictures, numbers and also flash cards are another great way for him to identify the diffeneve between two objects.
All I can say is that Matt is in there. And everyday he's getting stronger! Never under estimate the power of God and his miracles. God has an amazing plan Matt, we just have to be patient and another time for healing.
Some things I want to share with all of you are the things Matt does everyday for us. If you hold up two shirts and ask him what one he wants to wear he points to the one he wants. If you hand him a comb and tell him to comb his hair he will. If you hand him the tooth brush and tell him to help with brushing his teeth he will. If you say goodbye he will go to shake your hand or give you knuckles. If tou lean over and give him a hug and ask him to hug you back he will lift his right arm and gig tou back. If you tell him to give you a squeeze he will. When I ask him to give me a kiss he puckers up his lower lip. He does all these amazing things! He's awake everyone! He's alert! He is still healing but...he's getting there. This is something we all wanted 9 months ago. He's giving us hope. I promised Matt the day he came into that hospital holding onto barely anything that I would do whatever it took to get him back on his feet. I won't quit on him. And he won't quit on us. I have really good feelings for 2009! Love tou Matt, forever!!