Kicking it up a notch

We're going to kick Kira's therapy up a notch. 24 Hour Fitness (very close to us) has all brand new state of the art equipment and they provide childcare for children 6 months old and above. The Kid's Club is enclosed in glass so all activities are visible to exercising parents at all times. Parent is paged over the loudspeaker when diaper change is needed. Thought that was pretty funny.

Kira is now a member of the gym. She signed up on member appreciation day, so she got 13 sessions with a personal trainer for the price of 10. One of the personal trainers has special training and experience in stroke rehab so that is the trainer that Kira will be working with. The trainer will contact us to set up her first session. Baby Ross will be able to make some friends in the Kid's Club too!

Kira's right arm is really making some great progress! Her muscle tone and strength have improved dramatically over the last 2 weeks. Experts say that the arm wakes up starting at the shoulder and then works it's way down. The hand is the last to "come back". When she was first able to move her arm it was because she was moving it at the shoulder and none of the muscles in her arm contracted. She can now open the frig with her right hand and when she does I can feel her entire arm muscles tense up just like one would expect. Very exciting.

Her left vocal cord is still paralyzed, although every once in a while we can tell that it's moving because her volume level will increase. Last night I heard her loud and clear from an adjoining room in the house. That was the loudest I've heard her. We're going to arrange to see a specialist to assess her vocal cord. Even though the vocal cord and her aphasia are completely unrelated, the vocal cord problem does add to her frustration level and seems to be counterproductive to aphasia progress. So we'll know more on that later.