Emily and I are so busy during the day going to class (at Craig you go to class, not therapy, and you graduate, no discharge) that we don't get a lot of time to just talk. Last night Emily and Ken were sitting in the Craig garden and Ken asked Emily what she was thinking about. "Life," she responded, and then she said, "Sometimes I feel like crying." Ken told her he understood and in the process was struggling not to cry. Emily looked at him and said, "You don't have to cry for me."

Late this afternoon, after all the therapy ("classes"), Emily and I got a chance to visit. I asked her what worried her most, and she said "dieing." I told her she wasn't going to die, then I walked her through how close she came to dieing right after the accident and the pneumonia, trach, lung congestion, ventilator. She just kept nodding her head and saying "okay" and "now I understand." She told me how much it helped to have me there every day, and then we talked about where we go from here - getting back absolutely as much of her life as we can.

We met with the doctors in the spasticity clinic today. They hope to start treating her ankle next week and then move on the her right arm, shoulder and quad. Basically they use Botox and other meds to help muscles relax and respond more normally. Emily was actually very adament that we start with the right ankle - getting that ankle figured out is key to her being able to walk and even though we didn't explain that to her ahead of time, she somehow knew.

In PT this afternoon she stood at the parallel bars - not on the tilt table or the EZ Stand - for the first time. She needed help getting up, but once she found her center she did pretty well. She also spent a lot of time in PT and OT demonstrating her trunk strength. We're very close to losing the head rest on her wheel chair since she only uses it for weight shifts. If she can control her trunk she can do forward weight shifts and won't need the head rest any longer.

Ken and I haven't formally passed our car transfer training, so we don't know for sure if Em will be able to come home with us for a few hours this weekend. Tentatively, I would expect that she'll be at Craig until after lunch and then come home in the afternoon. Once we know for sure she'll be able to come home we'll let everyone know in a new post.