It's always a big accomplishment when a brain injury patient at Craig is able to walk outside of the therapy gym. On Wednesday, after walking nearly 150 feet in the parallel bars, Emily was able to walk across the gym and out to the nurses station for the first time. She's walking with a hemi-cane or walker, which is similar to a normal folding walker except it's used on the side rather than the front. Because of the continued issues with Emily's right arm, this is a better option than a traditional walker. She also continues to work very hard on the treadmill at Craig - it's unbelievably exhausting for her, but she still manages to go on and complete her other therapy sessions every time. Most importantly, she goes straight from PT to Speech and regardless of how hard she's worked and how tired she is, she shows progress in Speech every day.

Emily also advanced a level on three different cognitive/reading comprehension/reasoning exercises she's been working on this week. Today she started doing reading comprehension exercises at the 10th grade level and had 80% accuracy on the exercise quiz.

Emily was writing a horror novella when she fell last April. Yesterday she finished that novella (50 pages) and submitted it to Mrs. Clark. She's worked so hard on the novella - typing it by herself for hours at a time. I'm looking forward to giving copies of it to therapy team (at least the two who've said they want to read it) and seeing if they can tell where she was when she had the accident.

Her progress this week has just been remarkable. She's, justifiably, incredibly proud of herself.

Emily has finally been approved for homebound instruction and a teacher has been assigned. She'll be working with a very experienced teacher 2.5 hours per day, two days per week. We're still working through exactly what she'll be working on - the whole DSA/George Washington issue is still there. It's been so frustrating to work through this issue with a group of people at both DSA and GW that have never so much as met Emily, while her DSA teachers who know her and care about her are left completely out. It's not even completely clear that she'll get formal credit for finishing her novella.

Katherine, bless her heart, is coming over for a movie and dinner tonight. I don't know what we would have done without her incredible loyal and unflagging friendship.

Sometimes you get little glimmers of hope, and sometimes you get pretty big messages. A few of things that happened today represent pretty big messages to me.

First, Emily had a very full morning - she walked on the treadmill in the Lite Gait harness for half of her PT session and then spent the rest of her time walking in the parallel bars. The treadmill is tough because it forces a walking speed (albeit pretty slow) - she has to work on consistently taking steps at a pre-set speed while Celeste makes sure she's taking good, solid steps with a bent knee/heel strike gait. On Friday when she walked on the treadmill for 1/2 hour, she only had the energy to do some sit-to-stand work at the mat table. Today, she finished up her session practicing what she'd been working on in the parallel bars. It's just another indication that she's (1) getting stronger; and (2) moving more efficiently with practice.

Second, after an hour of PT and an hour of Speech, Emily and Ken went out to lunch. I met them and Em and I went back to Craig. Instead of wanting to just veg and watch TV, Emily wanted to read her book during her extra 1/2 hour - so she went to the outpatient lounge and read while I visited with another Mom.

Third, after an hour of OT from 1-2, Emily did mat class for the first time in several months. She wasn't "officially" on the schedule so I had to spot her, but she did really well and Celeste agreed that she ought to be doing mat class a couple of times every week.

Fourth, we got home about 4:15 after 3 hours of therapy, an hour of mat class, going out to lunch, and picking up Hannah. When I asked Em if she wanted to read or watch TV, she answered that she wanted to go upstairs and work on her horror novella, which she did until we sat down to dinner at 6:00. What a testament to how much better she's handling her fatigue that she had enough energy after a long day at Craig to come home and write.

Finally, I was visiting with another Mom I've never talked to before this afternoon. It turns out that Emily and her daughter, Rachel, were both at Kindred before Craig. When she was in her early dark days at Kindred, the staff suggested she read Emily's blog. While she'd seen Em at Craig before today, she never realized that she was "the Emily from the skiing accident" until today. She thanked me for the blog and for helping her - that's all I could have ever hoped for.

For Thanksgiving Ken and I want to thank everyone for all they've done for us the last 8 months.

We could have lost Emily last April, but we didn't. Thank God, Dr. Bortz, Flight for Life, and the St. A's ICU staff she's still with us. She's an incredible gift. She continues to get stronger every day. She's writing again almost every day. Her double vision is almost resolved. Her standing balance has gotten very strong, and she's walking better all the time. Her doctors and therapists all agree she's ready to start school again, and we're really encouraged by all the help Sarah Blumenthal at George Washington High School has provided. We're really hoping that she can get back involved with her after school clubs and maybe Creative Writing a couple of days a week very soon. Her progress is really exciting.

All of our friends, families, co-workers and neighbors have been incredible. We couldn't have made it without your support. Emily's friends have been truly strong - they've stuck with her through this ordeal and never made her feel different or excluded. Hannah deserves a lot of credit for being such a great sister and wonderful helper.

Laurie, Hendo and the others with the WP Freestyle team - your constant support was amazing. We truly hope to see you on the mountain this winter.

We've met so many wonderful people at Craig - people that will always feel like family. Therapists, doctors, nurses, techs, other staff, and most importantly all of the wonderful families we've shared our journey with. There have been some incredible victories.

We had a quiet day at home. Emily spent almost the entire day writing and chatting with Brendan on-line. She's written 4 pages of her horror novella in the last couple of weeks - it's almost finished. We had a great dinner and then relaxed and watched a movie.

God bless all of you.

Since Ken and I started our new half day work/home schedule I hadn't gotten to spend a whole day with Emily at home. I was so incredibly proud of her yesterday.

She started the day by checking her e-mail and writing her assigned daily e-mail to Mrs. Clark. This assignment was really a stroke of brilliance on Jana's part - writing the daily e-mail has forced Emily to get so much more comfortable working on her computer, and since it was Jana's assignment Mom isn't nagging her to try to work on a computer for a little while.

Em and I then did all of her strengthening and stretching exercises. She can now do her calf raises with a bolster under her knees with no cueing from me on her right leg. And her control with the balance ball has improved tremendously. After we stretched, she rested for about 15 minutes and then rode her recumbent bike for 22 minutes. The recumbent is much more difficult for Em than the MotoMed chair bike at Craig, and she's never been able to go more than 15 minutes before yesterday. Our goal is 30-40 minutes a day on off-Craig days (40 minutes being the length of a Buffy episode on dvd). Based on how strong she was yesterday, I know we'll get there.

The most impressive thing about yesterday was the afternoon. Emily spent 3 full hours writing on her laptop. She finished 2/3 of a page of the horror novella she's finishing and chatted with Brendan. Her tremors in her left hand have gotten so much better and it's helped her typing tremendously. When it's finished, her horrror novella will be the only direct comparison we'll have to her writing pre/post accident. I'm anxiously awaiting its completion so I can read through it and see how what she's writing now compares.

By 4:00 she was really tired, but she had a snack and read for an hour while Hannah finished her homework, and then the two of them watched "Once More With Feeling" while I fixed dinner. We finished dinner by 7:00 and she showered and crashed. We can definitely see an increase in her fatigue with the new meds, but she crashes at about the same time - she's just even more tired than she would have been a week ago. She's been in a fabulous mood the last two days, so we're hoping she's adjusted to the new meds and the sadness and anger we were seeing this weekend is behind us.

I find myself struggling to find things to write about on the blog these days. Our routine is pretty set and there's only so many ways to say Emily continues to slowly get better. I got some great video of Em walking in the parallel bars with absolutely no help last Wednesday that I'll try to figure out how to add to the blog. She looked really good. She's starting to work more with her cane. Her PT and I agree that she does better with her cane than she does with a walker or a shopping cart because her right arm gets in the way. It looks like we're going to try another round of nerve block injections on that right arm. She still has full range, but no purposeful movement and it's still very, very tight. Her pec and bicep are like bands of steel they're so tight. Ken and I are also seriously considering accupuncture - the Craig folks won't "endorse" the idea, but it can't hurt.

She saw her neuro-opthamologist again last week. Her right eye is making great progress. We have some new exercises to work on convergence, but the lateral movement is very strong. She's still only got about 10% up/down, but based on the progress she's made we're optimistic.

We got her a recumbent bike for home so she can maintain a regular exercise program. The delivery guys just loved getting it up the stairs! So far Em's a little intimidated, but she'll get used to it. I've read more and more recently about the benefits of a regular exercise program for people who've suffered a brain injury. Our loft is looking like quite the home PT gym. She does the stairs well enough we might have been able to put it in the basement, but it takes two of us to do stairs with her so it would have limited when she could ride. Stairs are also a lot of work for her, so she probably wouldn't have had enough energy to really ride once she got down there.

We went to REI yesterday to spend our dividend and replace Em's ski clothes. We're really hoping to get her up with the NSCD this winter. She got some cool stuff (and it's not even green!), but the trip ended up being pretty emotional for her. Sometimes it just hits her and she gets so angry and sad. One of the clerks was very sweet and did a nice job of distracting her. We were also hoping to get her a wet suit top that she could wear for pool therapy at the JCC, but no luck.

Tonight Emily and her friend Katherine are planning to go hear the Youth Slam Poetry Team at the Mercury Cafe. I think Em will really enjoy it. We're working through some issues with DSA (that I'm trying really hard to be positive about), so she won't be able to attend Philosophy or Writing Club for the time being. Em's on-line almost every morning if people want to chat or send her e-mails.

We had an excellent meeting with our Craig therapy team on Tuesday and I think we've identified a plan for therapy and school that everyone supports and a vision for how we all can better communicate. In a nutshell, we're hoping to use the next 10 months to complete Emily's 10th grade classes through a combination of homebound school, working with Craig's teacher, and the help and support of Mrs. Clark. One key component is getting Mrs. Dubrava, Ms. F-D and the DSA administration to allow Emily to audit her Creative Writing class at least two days a week starting in January. Her therapy team believes this would be a key part of continuing her therapy and slowly reintegrating her in the community. It's also key to beginning the process of evaluating whether or not Emily will be able to return to DSA full-time as an 11th grader in the Fall. Dr. Weintraub was specifically concerned that changing schools at this point in her recovery would be detrimental to Em, so we need to start sooner rather than later to see if we can make it work. Ken and I are relieved and happy that we were able to work through our issues with our Craig team. As Dr. Weintraub said, we've all become family and need to support each other.

Emily had a good week of therapy. She continued to work on her reading comprehension, which has improved significantly in just the last month. She also started to work on her longer-term retention of materials learned in reading comprehension exercises. She tried working with voice-recognition software, which we'll continue to explore as an option. She also did a lot of work on memory and fine-motor coordination. The biggest development was with her walking. Em did 72 feet in the parallel bars today with the best gait, control and balance that she's ever had. After that demonstration, she walked across the gym using first a cane and next a shopping cart. It's the first time she's walked any distance outside of the parallel bars in several weeks and she did very well. Celeste even gave Ken and I permission to start working with her on walking with a can for short distances at home - with help - and even suggested we try to get a loaner shopping cart for short neighborhood walks. Em was so happy with her progress.

This afternoon, even after a very long day at Craig, Emily had a wonderful visit with Mrs. Clark. They talked about what Emily's been reading, and Jana borrowed a book Emily recently finished and a copy of her as-yet incomplete horror novella to read. She'll plan to visit again soon to discuss the book and brainstorm with Emily how to finish her novella. She and Em also agreed on Emily's last contract to finish up her 10th grade Creative Writing - Emily is going to write 6 character descriptions based on her friends at Craig. She'll take pictures (by herself), write a sketch of what she knows about the person, and then describe how she would use them as a character in a story. I think it will be a really fun project. Mrs. Clark also gave Emily an assignment to write her an e-mail every day so she'll get back into the habit of writing regularly and, hopefully, get over her frustration with typing on the computer.

All-in-all a very good week.