Today's our last day of outpatient therapy for the week. It's been a pretty good week. Emily's working hard on increasing her strength and endurance in PT and doing a lot of testing in Speech. The cognitive testing is pretty frustrating for her, but it will give us a nice baseline to measure future improvements and she's doing just fine so far. We finally got her wheelchair - what a relief for all of us. She sits so much more comfortably in the better chair, and it's so much easier for me to load in the car. It even rolls better.

We're getting a pretty good routine going. She has a full exercise program for her "off" days. Hopefully we'll have her we'll have her mat table to add to her chair bike in the next few days. We've also got a new set of exercises to help "retrain" her right eye, which seems to be healing well.

Saturday is the 5-month anniversary of the accident. Next week I'm going to return to work, in the office, part time. Ken will start staying with Emily Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday. I'll continue to be with her on Tuesday, Thursday and the alternating Friday. Metro's been so good to us through this ordeal, it's time for me to go back. I'm optimistic it will work out well. Emily seems a little nervouse, but Ken will be with her when I'm not and we'll all be together every evening at home. Wish us luck with our next transition.

We're going to spend Saturday in Winter Park. We'll be around Sunday and Monday if anyone would like to visit.

Please add our friends Steve and Bob to your prayers.

Thanks and God bless,

Well it was quite a party. Thanks so much to all of you who were able to stop by. Emily had a wonderful time. We couldn't believe Ken's mom and sister made it all the way from Iowa - what a great surprise! It was so great for Em to see all of the people that have been supporting us through this ordeal, and it was especially good for her to be able to hang with her friends - ski team friends, DSA friends, Good Shepherd friends, even a Craig friend was able to stop by. Thanks to all of their parents for providing transportation to our house, we know it's not easy to find (as Father Neal and others made so clear!). She also loved seeing her teachers, former and current, that were able to stop by. Thank you all so much. Thanks to all the Winter Park coaches who were able to make it and of course thanks to all of our friends from Metro, the Fed, and our neighbors.

The food was fabulous thanks to Ron & Rome who did a wonderful job catering. If you liked the food, please stop by for leftovers. We seem to have an exceptionally large quantity of leftover marinated mushrooms, so seriously if you liked those drop us a note and we'll deliver!

Hannah deserves major credit for her help - entertaining isn't her thing and she rallied to help keep the kids who attended entertained. She's been such a trooper through all of this.

Emily showed incredible stamina yesterday, although she crashed pretty quickly after everyone left. We kept today pretty quiet and low-key. Tomorrow we're going to try to get into our off-day routine of exercises and other activities.

Thanks to everyone again.

We had a good first week of outpatient therapy. Emily had a chance to meet and work with all of her new therapists and I think we hit the ground running. Amy, OT, Celeste, PT, and Suzanne, ST, are all wonderful, very experienced therapists. Amy has identified computer work and control of Emily's left hand as a priority. Celeste wants to focus, initially, on increasing the strength in Emily's quads. which will improve her balance, before we spend too much time trying to walk. Celeste is also worried about Emily getting enough aerobic exercise, so we ordered a very simple chair bike for home today. Em's cast came off on Thursday and she's already had her fitting for her custom AFO (ankle/leg brace) which will hopefully be ready on Tuesday. In the meantime she's making good use of one of my two cast boots, which is a big improvement over the cast because we can take it off to shower. (Isn't it handy that I had not one but two foot/ankle surgeries last year. Actually, come to think of it, we're fast approaching the 1-year anniversary of my ruptured achilles - what a lovely year it's been!!!)

Suzanne wants to do some repeat testing to see exactly where Emily is - her memory and ability to retrieve memories is so much better that I'm looking forward to the results. Once the testing is complete, Suzanne will coordinate with Donna, Craig's tutor, on what school work Emily can start working on.

Ken spent the morning at home alone with Emily kind of getting a feel for what it's like. There were some hiccups (what do you mean she didn't brush her teeth?!?), but all in all it went well. I took Hannah to school, relaxed at Starbucks with a latte' and read the paper, got a haircut and my first pedicure in a year!!!!!! Tonight we saw The Little Mermaid. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, but I think Emily enjoyed it the most - it was just such a visual extravaganza. We're also thinking of getting tickets for the DCTC season since (a) we need to keep busy on the weekends; and (b) we suddently have all this time to fill that used to be spent on skiing.

We really hope to see all of you at our open house tomorrow - we really want to say thank you for all of the support you've given us over the last (almost) 5 months. Please stop by, even for a minute, 2-7 tomorrow, 1841 South Spruce Street, Denver.

We've got two days of outpatient therapy under our belts and I think we're getting the hang of it. In some ways it's a lot like inpatient except you don't sleep there. The big difference is you're just there for the therapy classes - there's no one to help you if you need anything not related to a particular therapy. The other big difference, so far, is that while my participation during inpatient therapy was met with different levels of welcome, now it seems to be required for all but speech. Visions of easing (sp?) back into work remotely are floating distantly away.

I have to admit that yesterday was a tough day. Ken and I had no idea that the first day of outpatient would be more of a family affair that he should have really been there for. In addition, Emily just wasn't herself yesterday - every transfer was difficult and her right leg seemed particularly uncooperative. As a consequence, by the end of the day I was really tired, sore and discouraged. All emotions that Emily picks up on in a heartbeat.

Today went much better. She was incredibly strong during our transfers and even found a way to balance herself standing in the downstairs powder room. We had one minor incident in the parking lot at Craig that led to a funny discussion of just how large the bruise on her butt would be if she sat down too soon. She got to work with Celeste, her new PT, today and I'm really encouraged. Celeste did a nice job of explaining to Emily what she needs to work on and that we'll work on a task, master it, then move on. I think Celeste brings the right balance of southern motherly concern and iron will. It's not like Emily has never worked hard before! She was already showing some significant independence in transfers after just one session.

Amy, Emily's outpatient OT, also hit the ground running. We swapped out the ever-changing arm brace for a new, much smaller model. Amy also did some electronic stimulation (EStim) on Emily's right arm and got some good response. EStim worked great at getting Em's right leg moving more consistently. The theory behind EStim is to give the connection between the brain and the affected limb a little extra jolt. I talked to Amy about whether or not voice-recognition software might be a good way for Emily to start writing again. Amy really wants to hold off on that - the best thing we can do for both of Em's hand/arms right now is get sensations going. The more her arms and hands try to talk to her brain the sooner new connections will form. Voice recognition software, in addition to being expensive, will actually hinder that process. Amy seems confident we can get things moving without resorting to that "crutch."

Emily is handling the hour long outpatient sessions pretty well. She gets tired but kept her attention really well in every session - although she sometimes gets distracted by the music in the gym. Tomorrow we have to go until 5:00 which will be a challenge, but we thrive on challenges (ha!).

One special note - we had long grain and wild rice for dinner tonight with our chicken kabobs (thank you Julie T. and all the friends that contributed to the Super Supper stockpile) and roasted peppers. We were almost finished with dinner when Ken and I simultaneously noticed that Emily was scooping her rice on her fork and eating it with NO tremor. Very, very cool.

We hope everyone can make it to the open house on Saturday. Emily's very excited to see everyone and we're looking forward to a chance to say thank you. Remember food & libations will be served!

OPEN HOUSE
Saturday August 25 from 2:00 -7:00
1841 South Spruce Street, Denver, CO
This is your chance to welcome Emily home, and our chance to thank all of you for your support. Please join us for food and libations!



Fliers By Hannah B.

After just a couple days at home we're seeing changes. Emily modulates her voice much better and she's using a more complex vocabulary. She's even arguing with her sister again.

Physically, transfers from her chair to the car, and vice versa, have become too hard with the slide board. It's actually easier to have her stand, take a couple steps and sit. She's getting better balanced and much more confident taking steps during her transfers. Every day small improvements - even Emily agreed with that tonight.

Our first weekend at home went very well. I'm not sure if Ken would agree, but things went much more smoothly than I had actually expected. Emily really seems to enjoy sleeping in her own room! We spent Saturday kind of getting settled and Emily got a much needed haircut. Many thanks to Alan and the other staff at Antoine du Chez - you were so wonderful with Emily and accommodating of her special needs. Her hair looks absolutely beautiful. We finished out the day with Mass, a nice dinner, and one of Emily's favorite movies.

Sunday was a busy day. Emily got to hear Steve and Rebecca perform at Montview - it was beautiful. While we were at Montview, Emily got to meet Ann the healing minister at Montview and Chaplain at St. Anthony's. Ann sat with me when Emily first got to St. A's and visited us several times while we were there. Of course Emily didn't remember her, but she was a great source of comfort to Ken and me and she was so pleased to see how much progress Emily had made.

Emily then went off to the movies with her friends from DSA. Brendan, Dylan, Shiloh and Peaches we can never tell you how much this meant to Emily. She's been so excited about it for the last week+. Thank you so much for helping her have a few hours of normal teenage fun. I really hope we can schedule more movies and other fun things with Em's friends in the future.

We finished out the day with a great dinner with Uncle Gary. It actuallly felt good to cook again, although I did tell Emily she shouldn't expect to eat this well every night.

One more day to rest and get settled and then it's back to Craig to start outpatient.

Well we made it home. Emily's last day at Craig was fun - she was so excited and all of the other patients and staff were so excited for her. Ken was worried I'd gotten too big a cake, and in the end we could have used an even bigger one. We owe so much to the Craig staff and the other families. Emily's made such huge progress with their help and support. Thanks too to Hendo for coming by on Em's last day - it meant so much to her and she loved being able to introduce you to Katie.

We got home about 4:30 and had the traditional homecoming gala of salad and frozen pizza. It was so nice to have dinner knowing we didn't have to rush back to Craig. Hannah was at a party with a friend, so we're going to have the real welcome home dinner tonight. Many thanks to all who sent contributions to our neighbor Julie for pre-made dinners - Julie's sons delivered over a week's worth of food yesterday that will be a big help during what's bound to be a period of adjustment.

The home set up seems to work really well. We found an inexpensive transport wheelchair at a medical supply store near home that we can just keep upstairs. It's smaller and actually works better in her room and the bathroom. Spike slept with Emily much of the night - both dogs seem so relieved to have her home. She's sleeping peacefully as I write this. I was just sitting with her thinking how good it must feel to sleep with a window open and fresh air after all these months.

We're going to spend the day today getting her room organized now that she's home - we have to find room for Buffy, Spike and Captain Jack along with all of the other wonderful art and angels that everyone's given her. We're planning on attending 4:00 Mass at Good Shepherd and the 10:00 service at Montview Presbyterian tomorrow - we've got a lot to thank God for (and Steve's performing at Montview tomorrow).

We'll be e-mailing flyers to as many people as possible about our open house next Saturday. We have so many people to thank and we know there's lots of folks that would like to see Emily.

Emily has really become the sweetheart of Craig - so many people care so much for her. Tomorrow's the day - she's SOOOO excited. We're just going to enjoy being a family again tomorrow night and Saturday, and then Sunday Emily's off to the movies with her friends. Special note to Shiloh, Brendan, Adam, et al - she's really, really looking forrward to the movie on Sunday, thank you all so much for planning it.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were planning an open house to give everyone a chance to see Emily and as our small way of thanking everyone for their support. Please join us anytime between 2:00 - 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 25. Our address is 1841 South Spruce Street in Denver. Food and libations will be provided. We really want to thank everyone that has helped us get to this point, and by then we'll have a week of outpatient therapy under our belts and we'll be better able to let you know good times to visit and perhaps help keep Emily company. Please, please join us in our celebration of Emily's recovery - you've all been a very big part of it.

Emily won first place for a solo performance at tonight's talent show at Craig. When you think about the fact that she was admitted to Craig on May 21 and didn't speak for close to a month, it's pretty amazing that she was able, and willing, to get up on a stage tonight and read two of her poems. I think her heart and her courage were a big part of her win. We also owe so much to Katie, Em's Speech Therapist, for all of her hard work getting Emily to this point. Here are the poems Emily read:

Odyssey
the journey of your life.
the challenges you face,
the insurmountable odds,
don’t always have to be faced
from the prow of a ship

Emily Boldt

Hope
watch as the baby bird
Opens his wings and tries to fly
mother Prays he finds the wind
his wholE life ahead of him

Emily Boldt

We celebrated her Talent Show win and upcoming homecoming at a great little Italian restaurant near Craig - Undici at the southeast corner of Downing and old Hampden. The food was great, the service was excellent and they were very accommodating.

I think we've got Emily's outpatient schedule set - she'll be doing outpatient therapy Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday each week. So she'll come home on Friday and be back at Craig next Tuesday. Lots of work ahead, but she's come so far.

So far this week has been spent primarily on discharge testing except in Speech. Katie, Emily's Speech Therapist, has been spending a lot of time this week on inflection - and she assigns homework. Emily's homework from this morning's session was to sing the lyrics of songs she knew. We decided to provide live entertainment in the gym this afternoon by singing along with The Fray while Emily rode the exercise bike. She had the benefit of her Ipod, I had to work from memory. Thankfully the gym was pretty empty. Katie did mention today that Emily's responses were much faster, which is a really good sign.

I meet tomorrow afternoon with Emily's therapy team to discuss her outpatient therapy. Right now we don't know which days or which therapists will be working with Emily - it's a whole new team for outpatient. We're hoping to keep Emily in as many of the group therapies - speech group and mat class - as we can to maximize her therapy time. We all want to get started on outpatient right away next week - Emily's anxious to keep working on walking and she really wants to get back to school.

Emily will be reading a couple of her poems at the Craig talent show tomorrow night. It should be a lot of fun and a great way for patients to demonstrate their talents, with or without injuries. Emily's planning to read her poems "Odyssey" and "Hope." They're both poems she wrote before the accident, but she now remembers writing both of them and is able to read them aloud. Another patient, Tommy Urbanski the former professional wrestler, will be playing the guitar despite being a quadriplegic. I'm sure there will be lots of other inspiring performances.

One of the things that has continually amazed Emily's therapists and me in her physical recovery is her ability to make huge strides in a short amount of time. We've seen this throughout her 3-month stay at Craig. She tries something new and it's really hard. They try the same thing the next day and she's much stronger. Based on my reading on neuroplasticity, it is my personal opinion that the first time she tries to learn something physical again - like sitting, standing or walking - her brain "wakes up" and remembers how to talk to that particular muscle group or limb and then her innate strength and determination kick in. This last week was no exception.

On Monday we were thrilled that she was taking single steps forward and back out and in with her left foot. By Tuesday, she'd added the same movements, more tentatively, with her right. Wednesday she was able to take several steps forward and back. Thursday she very tentatively walked the length of the parallel bars forward, backward and sideways. By yesterday she was walking faster and more confidently, her gait and her balance were significantly improved, she wasn't depending as much on her left hand on the bar, and she walked down the bars, turned around and walked back - twice - in one 30 minute session.

I'm hopeful we'll see the same kind of steady improvement with her right arm. Yesterday we tried some new weight-bearing approaches to the right arm and by the end of the session she was able to purposely bend her elbow and bring her hand to her face and hold her arm in a much more natural position. I've been reading about a neuroscientist who uses a "mirror box" to help stroke victims with paralysis do mental exercises to help regain the use of their damaged arms. The idea is to put their good arm in the mirror box, which makes the good arm appear to them visually to be there bad arm, and then think about moving their bad arm while they watch their good arm move. Opening this neuronal pathway seems to pave the way for more success with other therapies that force the patient to use the bad arm.

Sigrid as usual raises some very good points with regard to emotional healing and therapy. We have been blessed that Emily's brain injury has not caused any damage to her emotional and impulse control areas, but we have seen patients where it has. Since Craig will not accept patients younger than 15 (yes we barely made the cut), their approaches are geared to more "adult" brains. This doesn't mean that Emily never has her moments, because she does. Sometimes I think having Ken and me around to vent her frustration on helps keep her motivated with her therapists. We've also found that adding an element of competition gets her going - she's taken some interesting dives in balloon volleyball and managed to sit on a balance ball for 45 minutes yesterday with very little help while trying to crush the guys at cards.

Emily will be home during the day today and tomorrow. Please feel free to visit here. She's in class until 4:00 every day next week, as usual, but visitors are welcome any time after 4:00. She'll come home after her classes next Friday and we'll start outpatient therapy the following week. We'll have a going away celebration at Craig next Friday about 2:45. We're also planning an open house to welcome Emily home and thank all of you for your support - more details will be posted soon.

I just realized I've done 100 posts (this will be 101). Emily comes home in a week - exactly 4-1/2 months since the accident. How far we've come - she's awake, she's talking pretty much normally with a slightly higher pitch, she's come so far.

Today she walked the entire length of the parallel bars front, back and then side ways left and right. Two full laps. She also did 1/2 hour of squats and leg lifts and then fixed lunch with her therapists (she makes a mean burger). It was really an empowering day.

On the downside, there's still a lot of concern about her right arm. To keep it functional we've got to keep all of the muscles stretched. Her OT's want to look at re-casting that arm or making custom splints. It's so easy to get caught up on all of the other positives that we lose track of this one big negative - but her brain is still healing and we can try other therapies to get the right arm moving.

Mrs. Clark is back and visited Emily today. She was so happy - we're still hoping she can start writing again for credit even if she can't start her academic classes again for a few months. Her whole outpatient schedule will be worked out in the next week.

So Emily now spontanteously breaks into Fray songs throughout the day - guess she had a good time a the concert Sunday night!

She and Caroline enjoyed "The Bourne Ultimatum" last evening. Kudos to Caroline for going on a Craig outing with Emily, I'm sure it was a little intimidating.

Emily was a little better rested today and had some good classes this morning. She has a new assignment in Speech - she has to come up with 4 different sentences using the same word, such as school or shoes, in 1 minute. The exercise is intended to help her think and retrieve information more quickly.

For PT today she stood in the EZ Stand for 20 minutes, biked for 45 minutes (7.4 km), and then worked with her therapist for an hour. Laura is really trying to help Emily be more independent in her transfers to and from her chair. We worked on a couple of actual transfers, and then Emily and Laura spent a good half hour working in the parallel bars - coming to a stand and sitting back down, coming to a stand and doing standing squats, shifting her weight from her left to right foot, moving her feet, and ultimately taking 7 steps up and back. Big gains.

Right now she's cooking in Project Group. I don't know what they're making, but the ingredients seem to include bananas, sugar and cream cheese. Emily's scheduled for a quiet night at Craig tonight - massage and shower, so hopefully by tomorrow she'll be fully recovered from The Fray concert.

After a rough start and an encounter with an incredibly unpleasant Ticketmaster employee at the Red Rocks Will Call, we had a great time at The Fray - of couse, that is right up until it started pouring rain. I'd particularly like to thank all of the very nice security people on detail near the stage - they could not have been nicer or more helpful, especially since we didn't have handicap-accessible designated seats. The two local bands that opened were good and The Fray were awesome.

Emily's back in class and working hard today - despite not getting to sleep until almost 12:30 a.m. She's got a couple hour break at lunch today, so I'm hoping she'll nap. She and her friend Caroline are off to the movies with the Craig T-Rec staff this afternoon. It's nice to see her have a bit of a social life after all these months in the hospital.

Thanks much to Dave and Maureen for the (as usual) incredible dinner last night and to Brendan for providing dessert. We're glad the plans for the DSA trip to the movies seems to have worked out - that's Emily's first weekend out of the hospital, so it will work great for us.

Emily had a great time at Hobi Day yesterday. She got to go for a ride on a 20-foot Hobi sailboat, listen to tunes on the beach, eat barbecue and just generally chill. It's a truly phenomenal event. We really hope to be able to volunteer next year.

Emily's home today - enjoying some time in her room for the first time since March 31! The new stair lift works great and the new carpet, while not as easy to maneuver as the hardwood floors, is much easier than the old carpet.

Brendan - Emily is really looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Because she and I are going to The Fray at Red Rocks tomorrow night, we'll need to head back to Craig to get ready about 4:00. Cookies are always welcome! Baking is a great new hobby. Is Dylan going to come with you? Emily was excited when I told her that you were planning to bring Dylan along for your next visit.

Emily would love to go see The Simpsons Movie with all of her friends from DSA. Just let us know what time and which theater. I'm sure we could even make a weeknight work.

Remember - visitors are welcome any weeknight after 4:00.

Sigrid you are just too cute - we'd actually already decided that since Emily had to do all of the front, back, out, in with one foot she was obviously waltzing! Today, by the way, while in the parallel bars Emily took a, yes one single but still a, step forward with her right foot!!!! She was doing some rocking left to right to shift weight from her left leg to her right. This re-learning how to walk is hard business. We went to a presentation tonight on caretaker dogs - one of the therapy dogs at Craig is a "failed" caretaker (he had a problem chasing cats), and a woman from his organization suggested it might be something we consider for Emily if she has balance issues long-term. Hopefully not, but what a great option - especially given what a dog lover Emily is.

I thought I'd give folks a picture of just how hard Emily works. Between 9:30 and 11:30 today Emily had (1) stood in the EZ stand for 1/2 hour; (2) spent about 15-20 minutes working on standing, weight shifting and taking steps in the parallel bars; and (3) spent 1/2 hour standing in the stall table moving her right arm up and down one of those old fashion document stands - at which point she turned deathly white and almost passed out! Of course, I once again had stepped away for a few minutes to say goodbye to a patient that was discharged today (I'm beginning to think God's trying to tell me something), but I got back to the gym as 3 people are slowly lowering Em to her chair while one stood in front. Seems she turned deathly white and then announced she was getting dizzy. Basically an hour and a half is a long time for someone who's been in bed or a wheelchair for much of the last 4 months, and adding in working with her weak arm while she stood was just a bit much. By the way, she had a 1/2 hour of speech therapy in that 2-hour period too.

We did end up moving yesterday. Emily is now in room 220, which is in Craig East - across the bridge over Clarkson Street from where all of her previous rooms have been. She still does therapy and has lunch and dinner on 2West. I was a little nervous yesterday, but in the end the move has been great. The patients on 2East, by and large, are pretty stable and the mood is just much calmer. Emily has a roommate - a lovely older woman named Judy who stopped me on the bridge today to tell me how good it is for her to have Emily and her wonderful smile there to encourage her. She even enjoyed the morning music with Emily singing along.

Tomorrow is the 27th Annual Craig Hobi Day at Cherry Creek Reservoir. This event started many years ago when a therapist who worked at Craig had a Hobi and thought it would be fun for the patients to go sailing. It's a really big deal. Em will spend much of the day at Cherry Creek, but I can't imagine she won't be back at Craig by 2 or 3 in the afternoon ready for visitors. Her friend Julie has been a wonder and visited every afternoon this week, but she's leaving on vacation tomorrow so we're hoping other friends will pick up the slack. Julie's afternoon visits have been so good for Emily.

The stair lift was installed today and the new, wheelchair workable, carpet will be layed tomorrow. This weekend when Emily's home she'll actually be able to go up to her room. Speaking of weekend - on Sunday night Emily and I will be going to see The Fray at Red Rocks courtesy of KBCO 97.3 FM. I won the tickets by stumping the Sage of World Class Rock a week ago. The folks at KBCO know Emily's story now, so I'm hoping they help me make it a night to remember.

On a final note - yesterday was the 4 month anniversary of the accident.