We had the pleasure of meeting Dr. T.S Park at the Annual SDR Picnic in August at Variety Village in Scarborough. He is the surgeon who will be performing James' surgery on October 31st. He flew out for the day to see his past, future and prospective patients - how cool is that?!
Prepping for the picnic (unfortunately we were rained out and moved the picnic indoors this year)
Dr. Park is so kind! It was so neat to meet him before we see him next month in St. Louis!
The kids were exhausted by this point of the day!
Dr. Park was presented with a Team Canada hockey jersey gifted from his SDR patients. Virginia, seen below in the photos, presented it to him after she delivered a wonderful speech on behalf of Dr. Park's Ontario patients (39 of them as the hockey jersey says). Virginia is 1 of just 2 Ontario adults who have had SDR in St. Louis. She's an amazing writer and blogs about the day here.
We have really liked James' new stander! James likes it too and we've already noticed the difference in how tall he can stand because of the work this stander makes him do (his therapists call it "extension").
We started a couple weeks ago for the first time at Neurochangers in Whitby (it's not often we get a local appointment so I'm liking this one big time!). James has been twice so far and uses the GE-O machine which is a robotic stepper that helps James take steps while encouraging him to initiate steps on his own too. Yesterday Emily (his therapist in the photo below) put electrodes on his shin to stimulate his muscles needed to take steps. It's a neat machine and something different to change up James' routine which is nice.
James finished the summer session of horseback riding at WindReach Farm at the end of August. He really enjoyed it! We'll likely be going back in the winter session.
A couple weeks ago at SMILE Therapy for Kids we met a celebrity in our CP world. Her name is Maya. A video of her walking independently for the first time after SDR went viral on YouTube. Follow her journey on Instagram (mightymissmaya). She is such a little sweetie and oh so witty!
She loved playing with Shae in the waiting room.
James showing how strong he is while working with Jo-Anne and Kayla. This is a type of physiotherapy called Medek (or Cuevas Medek Exercise).
Kali is the OT that is working with James. Check this out!
James has started swimming with Alicia at Grandview every Friday morning in the warm therapeutic pool in Oshawa. He really enjoys it and his body is much more relaxed afterwards.
Sarah still comes to our house once a week for speech therapy with James. She always brings lots of fun toys with her.
Squeezing the last bit of summer with family. Summer 2019 was a good one!