Okay - for all of our sakes I'll try to channel "positive Barb" tonight.

Emily had her first post-accident vision test today - if anything her vision in the right eye is slightly better than the left, so there's no vision loss. Tomorrow we'll start eye stretching exercises to try to get her right pupil to move up, down and beyond mid-line. I'll be trained on the exercises so that I can add that to range-of-motion and voice exercises I'm already trying to squeeze in between classes along with bathroom breaks. Actually, we've started doing her range-of-motion in bits and pieces throughout the day - for example I do her right hand while she's in the EZ Stand at 8:30 every morning, and we did her vocal exercises while she was resting this afternoon. It's still a pace that makes the average school/work day pale in comparison, but I think that way goes "negative Barb."

Emily's strength has gotten much better. Last week it was taking her 20 minutes on the stationary bike to go 2+ km. On Monday she did the same distance in 18 minutes. Today she did almost 4 km in 25 minutes. She really seems to enjoy rocking out to her Ipod and biking - given all of the hours she's spent on our exercise bike it probably feels very natural, dare I say almost normal.

The muscles in Emily's right leg continue to respond more consistently. She's doing perfectly balanced bridges now (hip raises for you non-yoga types) and managed 10 reps on a right-leg only bridge today.

Finally, our dear friend and neighbor Julie, who's been coordinating everyone's efforts to help, will be going out of town with her family soon so she will no longer be available to coordinate. Rather than distracting our very small neighborhood from the new priority of helping Dave & Lisa Spence, Ken and I have decided it's time to stand on our own two (or would it be 4, 6, 7 or 8? Remember one of Em's legs doesn't work very well right now) feet. All of our wonderful friends can't keep feeding us forever. There are undoubtedly some of you who will still want to help and we truly do appreciate it. All of you know how to contact either Ken or me directly and we can coordinate. Also don't worry we won't starve - Julie's making sure the freezer Ken will go buy on Saturday is well stocked before she goes. Thanks to all of you for your time and financial contributions - it will never be possible for us to truly say thank you.