I have to start by saying how incredibly grateful Ken, Emily and I are for all the generosity shown by our friends with the Winter Park Freestyle team, Rocky Mountain Freestyle, and others from around Colorado and across the county that donated to the Keep Emily Skiing fundraiser. Thanks to all of you Emily will be able to enjoy almost 20 days skiing with the National Sports Center - and we know how much getting back on skis will help her maintain that positive attitude that's kept her going so far. You'll all be getting individual notes, but I thought some public recognition was warranted - Laurie thank you so much for doing this for Em.

It occurs to me that there are lots of people that follow this blog and didn't know about the fundraiser because they aren't involved in the world of freestyle skiing. Laurie did a darn good job of making it a surprise for us as well. The fundraiser is "officially" over, but if you'd like to contribute you can send checks made out to the NSCD to the Winter Park Competition Center, Keep Emily Skiing Fundraiser, P.O. Box 36, Winter Park, CO 80482. There are half-day programs ($56) and full-day programs ($126). I'm sure Laurie won't mind collecting donations for a little while longer (or at least I sincerely hope not).

We also need to thank the gentleman who donated his seats to the Avalanche game Sunday night. What a fun game to see live - 9 goals! I also have to say that overall the Pepsi Center gets very high marks from me for accessability (and believe me, not all venues in Denver do - I could write a brutal review of places that make maneuvering a wheelchair difficult and clueless, inconsiderate people. It's a whole different world from our angle.)

Mondays are always better when Emily's therapists comment on how much better she's doing than on Friday. One tenet of rehab/recovery is that a patient needs time to rest and incorporate new things learned. On Friday, Ken and Emily tried out a number of options for canes to assist with Emily's walking, some more successful than others. When Celeste and I worked on the same thing today, Emily did very well with her hemi but also did pretty well with the longer arm cane with the ergonomic hand grip and wrap around her fore arm. This latter may be a very good option for her when she's more confident in her balance. The downside with the hemi that she's using now is that if she places too close to her left foot, it's easy for it to get in her way and trip her. One big part of walking with any cane is learning how to feel where to place it so you don't have to look down. The minute she looks down, her weight goes forward and she loses her balance. A lot of what we do to help her is keep her left hand steady, keep her from locking out her left elbow, and be there in case she loses her balance so she doesn't fall. She does all the actual walking work.

Suzanne also saw big improvements in speech. On Friday after only a couple days of reading comprehension exercises at the 10th grade level, Em moved up to the 12th grade level. She did very well, but her scores on the comprehension questions went down. Monday she was right back at 80% correct, which is where she was on the 10th grade exercises last Wednesday. She also did a great job with some word association exercises - two meanings for the same word, two words why are they alike/different, naming opposites moving from pretty easy concrete examples to much more conceptual. She's much, much faster at these word exercises than she used to be.

It will be interesting to see if Emily's homebound teacher sees similar improvements today. She's a wonderful retired teacher who got bored and decided to go back to work part-time teaching kids that are homebound. Emily really likes her, but Emily's liked every teacher she's ever had (with the exception of 6th-7th grade science). You don't suppose that's why science is still her least favorite subject?

Emily's going shopping with a group from Craig on Wednesday. She developed her own shopping list and budget - all we have to provide is the money (some things never change). Hopefully this weekend we'll be able to get to together with some friends for some holiday cheer.