Things Get Better Each Day and More Visitors!

http://www.hemifoundation.org/

http://www.prayforjessie.org/

It's Friday, and Jessie has been at Cook Children's Hospital's "Transitional Care Unit" now for a week. Can you believe that? We've been here a week and Jessie has made phenomenal progress. I can't believe what has happened just in one week.

Jessie is walking!! We have to walk with her and hold a belt in case she trips...but she IS walking on her own!! Can you believe that!!! Things get better each day!

Today, she wanted to hop like a frog and she did....she wanted to bend down and pick something up and she did. When we got here a week ago, she could only stand and still needed about 50% assistance to walk. Now she wants to walk everywhere...even to therapy.

Thanks and Praise to God for watching over Jessie and healing her. And Thanks to Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, and Cook Children's Medical Center for providing the hands and guided by their talents from God to make things happen. Everyone: The doctors, surgeons, specialists, nurses, techs, nutritionists, therapists, child life, pastoral, and of course all the friends who visited to lift Jessie's spirits.

Jessie hasn't had any seizures since surgery on June 11th. I went back and watched newscasts before the surgery, and I couldn't believe how bad her seizures were. I had forgotten how much she twitched.

Below is a short clip from KTVT of Jessie up here at Cooks. It's a well done segment.
http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=30600@ktvt.dayport.com

Jessie's Aunt Cyndi and Cousins Kacie, Adam, and Colton. Also Mom and her Stinky Brothers. You can see it on her face how happy she is to be back around family again. I think that having family and friends close accelerates the whole healing staff. Perhaps that is a reason to go ahead and start trying to get her home to Aledo. Hopefully we won't be up here at Cooks more than a couple of weeks more.

Thanks to Aunt Cyndi and the kids for helping us out the past week. We appreciate it guys and have a safe trip back to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Here's Jessie riding the rehab bike. She does really well, and can pretty much drive it herself.

The Adamies came for a visit today. Brett, Jessie, Nicki, and Shelly.

Look at these guys. They really lit up her face!!

After a hard day of rehab, it's time to drift off to a pink dream. You have to wonder how she got that left arm way above her head like that.... We didn't put it there.

After reading the book "Pinkalicious" today, she asked me tonight if too much pink would turn you pink. I told her no that it couldn't really happen. Thank goodness, or she would already be pinker than cotton candy.

Medical Notes: They've asked us to do some Botox injections on her thumb to loosen it up, however, based on an FDA warning and advice from quite a few friends of Hemi kids, we have chosen to not do Botox injections. We haven't heard of any hemi kids who get lasting results from them..and they can be very painful.

They are beginning to look at new ideas for orthotics as well for both her hand and leg. I can't wait to see what they try next and how that affects her use.

Jessie has some very random, but semi-purposeful movements in her right arm, but Dr. Carson tells us that it is just her brain rewiring. It is evidently normal for these kids.

She has had some nausea and vomiting in previous days, but none in the past 2 days. She looks really good.

God Bless all of you for keeping up with Jessie and for your prayers.

I hope that everyone has a fabulous weekend.